My husband watched Autumn Watch last night and said they referred to our Robins leaving the country for the winter and being replaced bya winter migrant population - did he hear this right? I always assumed that our Robins were pretty sedantry little fellows.
Wow!! 50 robins!! Incredible!
"All weeds are flowers, once you get to know them" (Eeyore)
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50 robins would be such a brilliant sight - how lucky you were, Colin. 3 or 4 is the most I have ever seen in one go.
With regard to the migration issue, we certainly get a fair number of continental robins here in the winter months, no-one is quite sure how many. According to the literature, our resident robins try not to move out of their territories if they can avoid it. Males are especially sedentary, and only around 5% of females travel considerable distances in the winter. The main type of 'migration' exhibited by our resident robins is regional movements of a few miles, normally in response to poor food availability in their territories. An example of this are robins that nest high up on hills, and are forced to move down to the sheltered valleys to escape the winter weather, especially if it snows.
Thanks Trochilus, I have certainly learnt a lot about robins today.
Each day we walk our dog in the Seven valley country park.During the spring and summer we feed meal worms to 3-5 robins always in the same places if they are not there we whistle and they appear, I am not mad though people who have not seen this happen look at us in a very funny way. Two take the worms off our hands the others only from the ground. During the winter the numbers increase, last year there were 10 robins in just one small bush all coming down to feed without being agressive to each other.