I've just had a flock of robins - 10-12 birds - enter my yard and
proceed to strip a Cotoneaster of all the fruits it has been holding
onto for weeks. The birds reached all the berries they could while
perched on branches, then flew out one after another, one berry at a
time, and plucked them from slender, fruit-laden branches hanging
over the pond. As far as I can see, the fruits were reduced from at
least a few hundred to none (that's zero) in a half hour. This seems
to be how robins make their living in the winter, wandering around
the countryside and stopping briefly to plunder the fruit of a
heavily laden shrub or tree. They then fly off to somewhere else and,
at least for some plant species, disperse (by a special technique
called "pooping") their food plant seeds all around the area. I don't
know how well cotoneasters spread by this method.

Interestingly, birds that seemed "finished" with the fruits then ran
around the yard looking for earthworms, and they found some. I would
have had the worms first and the fruits for dessert. Just as I was
writing this, the last birds left the yard. Even though House Finches
and Varied Thrushes and E. Gray Squirrels took the occasional fruit
from that shrub, the robins were obviously quite serious about it.

Much of the time during the winter there are no robins in our yard,
so what a treat all at once to be able to see so many just living
their lives!

-----
Dennis Paulson
1724 NE 98 St.
Seattle, WA 98115
206-528-1382
dennispaulson at comcast.net



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