Wednesday, May 03, 2006

It's May and I forgot / Robins

to celebrate May Day. I worked, I didn't protest, and there isn't a maypole for miles. It's too cold and gray to do any dancing. I guess I'll have to wait until midsummer now, for my next chance.

There are many kinds of Robins. The most common is the American Robin. But there are Flame Robins and Rose Robins in Australia and Tasmania, and many other kinds of Robin in Mexico and South America--the White-throated Robin, the Clay-colored Robin, and the Rufous-backed Robin.

A Juvenile male American Robin has has a pale, spotted breast. Or, more precisely, "a pale rufous breast flecked with dark spots, and white lower belly and undertail coverts. Head is dark gray, white throat is streaked with black."

Whatbird.com is a good site for identifying birds.

I like birds.

5 comments:

Tao Lin said...

i laughed when i read 'I like birds.'

K. Lorraine Graham said...

Ah. Good.

Jessica Smith said...

ok, yes, then this was a normal adult American Robin (bright red breast, no spots) and my confusion is over where I have seen larger robins, because my web research tells me that European robins are smaller. Maybe I dreamed them?

K. Lorraine Graham said...

Tell me about European robins...

Jessica Smith said...

today i read an article about the ivory-billed woodpecker in the office at my doctor's.

i don't know whether it amuses or disgusts me that audubon is consistently portrayed as a great ornithologist. in the article it said he killed a few i-bws in order to paint them. but in his book it's like... he sometimes kills dozens of birds in order to paint them. i know times were different and there is something to be said for accurate biological portraits (if, indeed, audubon's paintings are biologically accurate is a different question--his blue heron painting always strikes me as so strange) but it's awful, so many birds for a few paintings.

i got bored with robins. because i can't imagine what i thought was a larger robin. apparently european robins are a different species, thrushes or something, but similarly colored.