First Robin

Spring is coming early to this part of Missouri. I shot this guy at 8:15 this morning when the temp was 31. First robin I have seen this year. He was right in front of the house in an oak tree.

Not as good a Daniel's bird captures. But it establishes the first rites of spring...

50D 1/100 @ f/22 ISO 400 70-200 @ 200

Merle, the Robin's don't even leave my area any more. They are here year round now so that should tell us something. My wife and I hiked a short trail near Clinton Lake last saturday and there were easily over 100 robins in the surrounding woods. They were everywhere.

Hey Wayne, Sounds to me like you must be in the "Banana Belt" portion of the mid-west. We did have a covey of Bob-'Whites up by the house last week. By the time I retrieved my camera they were long gone. I'm looking forward to next weekend on the Konza. I'm going to try to be in the area by mid-afternoon Friday to do some early shots and kinda look around before Sat morning.

Always glad to see more bird posts. Just curious, what is that stubble in the background?

Wayne and Merle, with the climate change, the robins pretty much stick around the Missouri capitol city also...not like the ol' days. Merle, this is only about 30 miles from you as the robin flies.

By the way, there is now a resident roadrunner just outside of Jefferson City. When I first moved to MO back in the 80s, there were no roadrunner reports in the state, not even in SW MO.

Best,
Don

I couldn't believe my eyes last year at the Spring Gathering in Arkansas. As we were driving back to Rod's cabin there was a roadrunner standing right next to the road. I had no idea they had a population in AR. Cool!

The stubble in the background is corn. They left it pretty high this year. Maybe because it was a late harvest... I haven't seen a roadrunner yet, but, there are an awful lot of armadillos between Jeff City and Springfield.