Robin death

[Aleta Karstad]

This morning while admiring our sprouting Rhubarb, stepping carefully between raised beds in my slippers, I stepped over a gray damp-feathered rag. Closer inspection revealed it to be a Robin, dry orange breast down. As I lifted it, estimating that it had been dead for a couple of days, with a dark striped Arion hortensis slug clung to a tail feather, and several small brown ants moved about in confusion, in the region of the vent.

So at least one of our dozen or so Robins looking so miserable about last week’s complete snow cover, did not survive.

Aleta

[rmb...@istar.ca]

The long trip north, the rough cold weather, scarcity of food, and
possibly contaminated food eaten during the journey north, and old age
no doubt take their toll on our feathered friends. I'm just glad
there are wet areas that don't freeze up, many times I have watched a
flock working over our beach where runoff down the hillside keeps a
steady stream going and soaks the sand. We used to clear all the
leaves and pine needles off the edge that washed up on shore in the
fall, but I haven't been able to keep up with that these past 3 years.
As a result I have been watching, since we moved out here
permanently, many birds gleaning through the "debris" and finding some
fat morsels.

I hope to find a couple of "berry" trees like flowering crabapple and
mountain ash, I had those in Glenburnie and the birds relished the
bounty.

Rose-Marie

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