Is there a population explosion in robins going on?

Factual Questions
1

It used to be that sightings of robins were relatively rare, at least, spotting the first one in spring was welcomed as a genuine sign of spring, and even the rest of the summer, you might spot one or two robins as you go about your life.

Now? Well, it’s a rare morning that I don’t open my front door to see at least four male robins hopping around in my really not very large front lawn. And I swear I see a robin, maybe two, in the yards of all the houses I pass on the way to work.
(I’m in Eastern MA.)
Now, okay, this can just be confirmation bias or whatever, but the change in population seems very real to me. So I was wondering –

Do other people see this happening?

If so, is it just a part of global warming? Like, a whole bunch of robins that used to hang out south of here have shifted northward?
I have an alternative theory. Dogs used to be allowed to run free in this town. 12-15 years ago the law was changed to require dogs to be on leashes/runs/fenced at all times.

Very soon after that, chipmunks shifted from rarely seem to common – every stone wall around here (and we have lots of old stone walls) seems home to a family or two.

Not very long after that, the fox population increased greatly. Again, from something super rare to being seen maybe every week or two in our neighborhood, at least.

About the same time, coyotes moved into the area.

Not long after that, a lot of people began keeping their cats indoors to keep them from becoming coyote chow.

So…maybe its a chain of cause and effect? Leashed dogs kill fewer small rodents things = more rodents. More rodents = more food for foxes & coyotes. More coyotes = more cats killed. More cats killed = cats kept indoors.

Cats kept indoors = fewer robins killed?

Could house cats really have been killing enough robins to make such a big swing in their population?
Hmm. Will more robins = fewer worms? Fewer worms = less fertile soil? Less fertile soil = less success in gardening?

Weird to think that something like adding a leash law could shift the local ecology in such a way.

2

The last few years, I’ve been seeing an occasional robin in winter. Don’t know what that means, though.

3

Funny you should say that, as in the UK, robins are a stereotypical Christmassy image, although you see them year round.

And, I’ve just discovered that what Americans call a robin is not the same bird at all. :smack:

4

For what it’s worth, I also live in Eastern Massachusetts and agree that there are more robins here than ever. Whether this is a cyclical phenomenon or a true change in the population dynamics, I can’t say.

One thing I can say with certainty, though, is that there has been an explosion of robin-related threads in GQ. This is the third this year!

5

I’ve noticed a gajillion of them here at Kasa Kalhoun. I used to have tons of Bluejays back when we had an outside dog, but since we removed the dogfood, I haven’t spotted a single one.

6

I dunno about a population explosion, but they were never rare in this neck of the woods. Since I was a kid, robins were and are some of the most common birds you see in the summer.

And interesting factoid that what the UK people call robins are very different from ours! I guess if I think about it, the full name is “American Robin”, so that makes sense.

7

I’m a birdwatcher who like the OP lives in eastern MA.

I haven’t heard anything about a widespread population explosion of robins in recent years although I suppose there could be local conditions in his town that might have caused a difference.

However increasing populations of foxes and coyotes has been going on across the northeast for at least 30 years. Also robins are one of the species of birds (like starlings and crows) that actually seem to LIKE suburban sprawl, and I have never heard that they are especially susceptible to house cat predation.

There do seem to be somewhat more robins hanging around in the winter. I don’t know if this has anything to do with global warming.

Some birds with more southerly ranges that HAVE increased in New England over the last 40 or so years include Mockingbird, Cardinal, Mourning Dove, and Carolina Wren.

8

never mind.

9

The migration paths of Robins are rather nomadic and irregular. One part of their “normal” range might have virtually no individuals, while 300 miles away you’d have one of these huge meta-flocks spread over many square miles. Unless there doing second-wave nesting early July likely will have them moving all over the place before they actually migrate (if they do at all).

10

Yeah, when I was a kid I read a lot of British books and never understood what was supposed to be so cheeky about those fat, almost-vaugely-sinister birds in our yard.

11

Robins in Winter
It seems to have to do with snow cover; five inches being too much for them:

12

I wondered about this myself. I’m in England and used to have a couple of robins at the bird table, nowadays there are as many as 10 fighting over the bits of grub I put out.

Territorial buggers these robins, can be right bloody nasty at times.

Cute though

13

They are all over Chicago too. I used to see maybe two a year, now they are everywhere, in fact this last winter (which was pretty cold) I saw them in the winter. We have had a very wet Spring/Summer, so maybe they are able to get more worms and raise fitter yung’uns.

It was pretty uncommon (for me at least) to see a robin in the city, now I see them wherever I go.

14

I’m also a (casual) birdwatcher in eastern MA and I’ve been seeing so many of the them it’s become a joke with my wife and me that every bird we see is a robin. There seem to be a LOT more of them around.

15

Enough with the anecdotes. Here’s some data:

The online edition of The Massachusetts Breeding Bird Atlas 1, American Robin.

Data collected from 1975-1979.

“American Robins are among the most ubiquitous nesting species in Massachusetts…”

“Originally birds of the forest, robins responded positively to the clearing of land and settlement and are thought to be many times more common today than they were in the colonial period. They are especially abundant in suburban areas.”

They were found in 95.9% of surveyed blocks. So if they are increasing they are doing so from already very high numbers, and there hasn’t been any discussion of it on the birding message boards I frequent.

Data is being collected now for the second edition of the atlas.

The Mass Audubon site does mention three species that HAVE increased over the last 30 years: Pileated Woodpecker, Red-Bellied Woodpecker and Carolina Wren.

16

An increase in robins in New England may be related to increased supplies of food in the form of insects, due to the massive die-off of bats in the same area from “white nose” disease.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/01/30/tech/main3773409.shtml