Some Observations On Robins' Nests

I've noticed a few patterns while doing all this nest searching.

1. Robins' nests are not distributed evenly over an area, but rather are clumpy, meaning that a few nests will be clustered close together in one location, and in other locations there may not be any nests at all. I suspect this is due to the availability of food, but at first it really surprised me. I didn't expect to find a three or four nests pretty much on top of each other. Now, when I find one nest I pay extra close attention to the surrounding trees and shrubs because I know there is a better than average chance I will find another nest nearby.

2. Robins seem to synchronize their nest building, egg laying, and fledging. Again, this is most likely due to the availability of food. For example, today at our site near Foggy bottom I saw three female robins, all nest building, and all within a block of each other.

3. When a nest fledges or fails, robins tend to re-nest right in the same area, usually within twenty feet of the last nest. Realizing this has proven quite useful, as the best place to start looking for a new nest is right where the old, depredated, parasitized or abandoned nest used to be. In one situation, a female robin rebuilt her new nest one branch above her old abandoned nest (the two nests were less than a foot apart), and I was thrilled to see this, but then she abandonned the second nest as well.

4. Although the books say that robins tend to nest in the forks of trees, this does not seem to hold true for our study sites. At least half, if not more than half, of the nests are located fairly far out on unbranched limbs, and not in a fork at all.

5. Also according to the literature, robins seem to prefer evergreens-- blue spruce and juniper in our area-- early in the spring and then deciduous trees later in the spring because they have more leaves then and thus provide better cover. This seems to have some truth in it, for about half or more of our nests early on were in evergreens, and it seems that less than half are in evergreens now. (More on this soon).