they want you to know that spring is really coming! We've been seeing more robins in Detroit, too. I've never seen as many as you're describing tho.

It is unusual,as earlier this morning I was looking outside and didn't see any birds. All the sudden I can see multiple birds out of every window.

It rained heavily yesterday and last night, and there's a lot of standing water and flooding. Temperature is in the upper 30s. Birds are pecking at the ground, maybe there are some worms or insects coming up for air.

And it's not all Robins out there, other birds have also arrived, but I haven't gotten a close look at them and haven't ID' them yet.

You've probably had Am. robins all winter long but they have been spending time in flocks perched in trees (eating berries) and not their typical yard-hopping due to frozen ground. The thawed, wet ground afforded them the opportunity to forage for earth worms.

I saw flocks of them during the winter, probably 50+, all perched around a tree like bright orange Christmas bulbs, puffed up from the cold. It always kind of cracked me up a little.

I have been looking, but haven't seen even one all winter.

Here's the million dollar question, what other birds about the same size would be hanging out with and feeding with Robins but are a slate gray and have yellow beaks and eyes?

Dunno, could use a bit more on the description....

Northern Mockingbirds are gray (not what I call "slate"), robin-sized, long tail, yellowish iris, black bill, and bright white patches on the wings when they're spread. They are pretty obvious. They eat earthworms.

Not an exhaustive list I suppose but nothing else has quickly come to find that I haven't ruled out based on behavior/description/range.

farmboy - did the bird look like this? It's a Cedar Waxwing and here, in Central Connecticut, the robins lead the way to food, especially berries, and then the Waxwings come in a group and clean every berry available. They can clean my bushes in under 3 hours and I do not see them again until the next February.

Kindly,
Jane

IN the groups of birds, there were some that were similar to the Robins, dark gray, yellow beak and eye, but clearly no reddish orange breast coloring. They quickly moved away from my yard (still covered with a lot of snow and water) to another farther down that had more open grass and soil.

The Northern Mockingbirds are too light gray, and I didn't see any white whits markings, though I could have easily missed them due to the distance.

The Cedar Waxwings are a wishful possibility, but again, the birds I saw were of a uniformly dark color.

Also, there are no berries around here. They were all gobbled up quickly in fall, and any drupes left on some trees were chased down by the squirrels on their high-wire act. The squirrels even go into my yews and eat all the little red berries.

The birds I saw were clearly pecking and digging in the ground to find food.

Today is colder and windy, and there aren't as many birds around

Begin trying to photograph your birds because we'll be guessing all day and night. :-)

This post was edited by TMFF on Tue, Mar 12, 13 at 14:59

Yellow eye makes me think of some kind of grackle (Common Grackle here), but they don't have a yellow beak. Yellow beak makes me think of European Starling, but they don't have a yellow eye.

Or could you be seeing all robins, but some of them with paler breasts (females or juveniles)? also, when I see robins from the back I see slate gray with none of the red breast showing. Western robins are supposedly less colorful than the eastern ones.

Other than that, I've run out of suggestions.

Claire

Exactly. Nothing really fits the description. A close enough view to see a yellow iris would undoubtedly afford the opportunity to take notice of the white wing patches of a No. Mockingbird.

Some time ago I began doubting everything I saw without binoculars because I realized I wasn't seeing accurately due to lighting, reflection, etc. So I now don't try to ID anything unless I get a good, clean look at it and take note of definitive field marks. Or, I get a photo that I can study, even if it's so-so quality. It really reduced the amount of the "woah, I just saw something rare!" proclamations. Lol!

Yes, I agree it's tough without being able to get a good look, or know just what identifiers to look for on a particular bird. It's not always possible to get a good look at the entire bird, either. I often don't have my digital cam with me, and even then, it takes a moment to set up. The iphone is really not very useful for closeup photos from a distance.

The possibility of a Western Robin is a possibility, as are the possibility that some birds didn't have very reddish breasts. Grackle was another that I thought of, but the ones I've seen have a dark beak and obvious iridescence to their blackish color.

It should get warmer later this week, and I'll surely be looking closer and trying to get some pics.

Thanks,

vince