After a long hiatus, the Birds of the Week are back.

This is your opportunity to post personal anecdotes about the featured
species. If you like reading other tweeter's story, post one of your own
every once in a while. If the same four people are the only posters every
week, I'll assume a general lack of interest and drop it.

Birds for this week are:

American Redstart - A bird more familiar those tweeters from the eastern US
or Canada than most Inland Northwest residents. No story from me about
Redstarts.

American Robin - One of those rare birds that does well in cities and in
habitats far from cities.

Robins: Most of the memories I associate with robins seem to involve robins
as prey items. A young robin being carried away by a laboring Kestrel,
trailed by a crowd of distressed adults. A baby robin being passed from
adult Great Horned Owl to an owlet. Robin carcass remains in the yard
year-round. Blue robin eggs on the ground in spring. Hapless newly-fledged
robins falling victim to dogs. It's a good thing robins have a lot of
offspring, because they aren't the most brilliant of birds.

I do remember the time, about 8 years ago, when Mike Smith and I were
wandering around the south end of San Juan Island, hoping to find one of the
last of the Sky Larks there. We heard a long meeeew call. Thirty minutes
of searching, later, we realized it was a robin with a worm in its mouth.
I've since heard the same call many times, usually from robins with
youngsters.

Dr. Kelly Cassidy
Curator, Conner Vertebrate Museum
Washington State University, Pullman, WA