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Two Robins Oceans Apart
| Article
# : |
17601 |
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Section : |
NATURAL SCIENCE
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| Issue
Date : |
7 / 1990 |
1,772 Words |
| Author
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Charles R. Smith
Charles R. Smith is a naturalist/conservationist who teaches
for the Laboratory of Ornithology and Department of Natural
Resources at Cornell University. |
It was the beginning of the nesting season and a female American robin, easily distinguished from the male by her paler coloration, was "prospecting" to find a location suitable for building a nest that would eventually hold her four or five blue-green eggs. She moved quietly among the sheltering pines, stopping first here, then there, lowering her plump body ever so slightly, looking cautiously all about, then moving to another location.
She was examining each location to determine its "fit" for a nest site. She lowered herself gently on to each supporting branch, then turned slowly from side to side, peering right and left, up and down, before moving to another location among the branches. Within a week, the female had begun to build a nest in one of the locations visited earlier, now attended by her brightly colored mate. It proved a suitable site, and scarcely three weeks later, the pair of robins were feeding newly hatched young. Spring was passing into early summer and both dawn and dusk were filled with a chorus of robin song.
What's in a Name?
Robin - the very name conjures up images of friendship and cheer, a harbinger of spring. Robin Hood, benefactor and friend of the poor in medieval England; Robin, Batman's faithful, red-vested partner - indeed, the origins of the very word, robin, are rooted in friendship and warmth. David Lack, an authority on the British robin, traces the word to fifteenth-century England. In his popular account, Robin Red breast, published in 1950, Lack reported that the bird originally was called "ruddock," Anglo-Saxon for "redbreast," in reference to the orange-red color of the bird's breast feathers. And the "tame ruddok" of Chaucer's Parliament of Fowls is the familiar and friendly robin of modern Britain and Europe. The names "robyn redbreast" or "robynet redbreast" appear to have been in widespread use by the first half of the fifteenth century in England, leading Lack to observe, "From the time of Chaucer onwards, English literature is full of compliments to the tame and friendly robin."
Soon after arriving on the shores of North America, the first European settlers no doubt were greeted by a russet-breasted bird, reminiscent of their own redbreast. It was given the name "robin," subsequently officially modified by the American Ornithologists' Union (a professional organization that decides, among other things, the English and scientific names of North American birds) to American robin, to distinguish it from many other robins around the world. In Australia, for example,
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