02/24/2026
Read.
Robins do not migrate.
I AM NOT A SIGN OF SPRING.
I AM A SIGN THAT YOU DON'T LOOK UP IN WINTER.
You saw me on your lawn yesterday. You told your kid "spring is coming!" You posted it on Facebook. Everyone liked it.
I've been here since November.
I am an American Robin, and the idea that I "return in spring" is the most persistent myth in North American birdwatching. I don't migrate south for winter. I migrate UP — into the tree canopy, where dense berry clusters provide food and thick branches block wind. I've been 30 feet above your head for four months.
You stopped seeing me because I stopped standing on your lawn. I don't eat worms in winter — the ground is frozen. I eat berries. Exclusively. Crabapples, holly berries, juniper berries, winterberry, hawthorn, and whatever fermented fruit is available in the ornamental trees your neighborhood planted.
ABOUT THE FERMENTATION:
By February, most remaining berries have undergone freeze-thaw cycles that accelerate ethanol production. The sugar has partially converted to alcohol. I eat them anyway.
Yes, I get drunk.
Documented effects of berry fermentation on robins include: erratic flight patterns, reduced predator awareness, collision with windows and vehicles at higher-than-normal rates, and — this is real — falling off branches.
The Cornell Lab of Ornithology receives more reports of "injured" or "sick" robins in late winter than any other season. Most of them are intoxicated. They sober up in 4-8 hours.
I'm not proud of it. But the alternative is starvation.
WHY THE MYTH PERSISTS:
In late February, when soil temperature reaches 36°F, earthworms move to the surface layer. I drop out of the canopy to forage on lawns again — suddenly visible. You see me "for the first time" and conclude I just arrived from wherever robins go in winter.
I was 30 feet directly above you the entire time. You just didn't hear me because my winter call is a quiet "tuk tuk" instead of the loud spring song you recognize.
I didn't come back. I came down.
So the next time you see a robin on a February lawn and feel the first optimism of spring — enjoy the feeling. But know that the bird you're looking at has been above you all winter, silently eating fermented berries, occasionally falling off branches, and waiting for the ground to thaw.
I'm not a messenger. I'm a survivor who switched floors.
