Re: [SBB] Thrushes

In a message dated 1/27/2007 5:51:12 PM Pacific Standard Time, [[email protected]] writes:

Our
resident birds start to sing in the next month. In March and April,
they will be nesting, but you can still encounter large flocks of
migrating birds in some years. To the best of my knowledge, there
are no "spring arrival" robins in central California.

I agree with Bill's take on the late winter flocks as being wintering birds and not returning breeders, but breeding Robins in our region are anything but static over the seasons. It has been my observation that the nesting population becomes scarce to absent by late summer over large areas of the Santa Cruz Mountains. They are going somewhere, but is it a relatively local movement within the region, or a longer range migration? In some areas, even large parks like Big Basin Redwoods SP, the exodus is so dramatic that one may have to look long and hard to find robins by the end of summer and early fall before migrants arrive in mid-fall. Even now they are nearly absent in much of the park. Eventually the nesting birds will reoccupy breeding territories throughout the park...but where are they now? Elsewhere in the region, or farther away?