Robins

The past few days I've been hearing and seeing robins around the college campus. It seems early, but maybe it is just the fact that the days are nice and I've been outside more moving around the garden spaces. The robins are the pleasant sentinals of dawn and dusk. There is something comforting about the distinctive early morning sharp chirps that herald the start of the day and the more melodious harmonies of dusk. I wonder how long humans and robins have cohabitated and whether it is this long lingering together that has created our affinity for thier song? Does the presence of robins indicate to us at some deep, primal level a comfortable environment in which to live? Mourning doves evoke similar convivial emotions, slightly tempered by the overtones of sadness in their song.

The only other birdsong that comes close to robins is the singular evening sounds of the Common Loon of the lake country.  It may be that we are influenced by the comforting birdsongs of our youth. The warm months in the Red River Valley of North Dakota were punctuated with the sound of robins in the yard, mourning doves across the road in the Bakken's pines, sparrows chirping and pigeons cooing in the barn and the cacophony of red wing blackbirds a few hundred yards away along the Elm River.