Interesting--that sound you describe sounds like the robin's cousin, the
varied thrush. They're often seen together and I just saw a varied
thrush in the back yard last Saturday. One of the best things about this
rather dismal time of year for me is when the varied thrushes start
showing up again. Easier to see our fine-feathered friends when the
leaves have already fallen.
wjansen

On Wed, 20 Dec 1995, Kathleen Hunt wrote:

>
> I got a close look today at an American Robin giving a vocalization that I
> haven't noticed before. I got out of my car at UW, and while putting my
> money in the meter (this can take quite a while!) I realized I was
> hearing a thin, high-pitched, continually repeated descending note:
> eeer,eeer,eeer,eeer. It was VERY thin, high-pitched, and faint, like a
> nestling's begging call (I even thought, ridiculously, "nestling
> mockingbird?"), and it dropped distinctly in pitch. Each call lasted about
> 1 second and the calls repeated every 2 seconds in an apparently endless
> monotonous series.
>
> After looking all around, I finally realized there was an American Robin
> perched about four feet above my head, which meant the call was much
> fainter than I had first thought. The robin was perched absolutely still
> in a little tree. I stared at the bottom of its chin for several minutes
> and was convinced that it wasn't the bird giving the call, because from
> that angle it looked like its bill wasn't moving at all, and its throat
> certainly wasn't moving. Then I stepped a few feet to the side and
> detected that it was opening its bill a tiny bit (about 2 mm at the bill
> tips) for each call.
>
> It just sat there, stock still, at the end of the day in the fading
> light, incessantly repeating this very faint, high-pitched descending
> note. Why?
>
> curious,
> Kathleen
>