The Seasons of the Robin

Earlier this year I reviewed The Private Lives of Birds, which presents a look into the social lives of birds. I love books like that, as it makes the birds that I see more real, in a manner of speaking. They are no longer just transient objects to look at, but complex, living beings. But these studies are, by necessity, general. They tell you how a group of birds or a species usually lives. But that makes it easy to forget that the birds we see are individuals. When you look at an American Robin, you’re not just seeing a representative of the species Turdus migratorius. You are seeing a unique individual.

It’s hard to think of birds like that, because we can’t follow a single bird for long. Sure, we can study individuals on territory, and even remotely track single birds in migration. But wouldn’t it be great to be able to follow a particular bird from birth through fledging, learning how to fly and provide for itself, migration, courtship, and breeding? In The Seasons of the Robin, Don Grussing does just that.

This fictional story begins with a nest full of possibility in the form of four blue robin eggs. The narrative focuses on one of the robins that hatch from these eggs, a male. We follow along from hatching to the opening of the eyes all the way to fledging. The reader gets to experience the joy and terror of flying for the first time, as well as the struggle to learn how to survive in an unforgiving world. After the robin is able to survive on its own, it leaves its parents to wander about. After a few months, an inborn instinct compels him to join with others of his kind and fly south. He has to deal with predators and adverse weather that makes it difficult to find food. Eventually, he finds himself at a spot that has shelter, water, and plenty of food – everything necessary to survive the quickly approaching winter.

But with the longer days as spring approaches, he again finds himself filled with a restless urging that can only be satisfied by making his way north again. He finds himself drawn back to the area that he found after leaving the nest, a spot that has now been indelibly imprinted within him. After again surviving the travails of migration, the robin seeks to establish a territory of his own where he can begin the cycle anew.

Thus, The Seasons of the Robin tells the story of one robin’s first year of life, from birth to breeding. As previously mentioned, it is a fictional tale by necessity, but it is still incredibly insightful and educational. You may know a lot about how a bird lives, or even have extensive first-hand experience studying them, but this book will still be an eye-opener. The insight it gives into a bird’s day-to-day life is amazing and includes things that I’ve never even considered before.

One such thing that struck me is that while migrating, the robin was able to stay with the flock even in darkness by the sound of his companion’s wing beats: “Robins fly with deep, powerful strokes, but the beats of their wings are not constant-that is, there is a delay in their wing beats, which permits them to hear the sounds of the other birds in the flock while migrating and thus helps them maintain their place with the other birds.” I had never thought about any non-aerodynamic purposes for such a flight style. But while that seems plausible, I’m a little skeptical about the reasoning. As the author mentions, the birds also use flight calls for such a purpose and, of course, the birds can usually see each other even at night. But perhaps there have been some studies on this that I’m not aware of.

Stories with an animal as the main character are incredibly difficult to get right in terms of style. It is very easy to anthropomorphize too much and treat the subject like a human being. But on the other hand, if you’re too clinical and detached you can loose the reader’s interest. Nowhere is this fine line more evident than in one of the basic elements of storytelling – the character’s name. The robin here is not named, but instead is usually referred to as “the young robin”. While I’m glad it remained nameless, the references were repetitive and a little awkward at times.

Grussing does, however, attribute feelings to our unnamed protagonist, at least in terms of satisfying instinctual behavior. Here is one example: “Then, just sitting there, he opened his bill slightly and sang a soft, quiet song for about ten seconds. It wasn’t loud, but it was pleasant to him and made him feel good.” This does not bother me at all. I have a harder time believing that birds are emotionless automatons than that they do feel some pleasure in what they do. For the purpose of storytelling, I think the author has struck a good balance.

A bird’s life is a monotony of eating, drinking, and flying, interspersed with sudden, brief periods of excitement. So there is a great deal of inherent repetitiveness in the story as the robin does the same things day after day. It would take some impressive wordsmithing to overcome this. Unfortunately, the writing fell a bit short for me. It was certainly adequate but, although I found the story keenly interesting overall, my interest still waned at times.

Other than a typo, the only error I noticed was a Bronze instead of a Brown-headed Cowbird.

Recommendation

The American Robin is one of the most familiar North American birds. But how well do you really know it? If you’re like me, maybe not as much as you think. The Seasons of the Robin will teach you much about robins, like their breeding biology and feeding habits. But the real value of this book is that it gives a good idea of what a bird’s daily life is like, season by season.