I’ve recently been struck by how many seemingly useless, odd, or obscure curiosities that come to me throughout the day, and I thought to myself, well, wouldn’t it be nice for us all to wonder and then learn some things together? So welcome to my newest segment of The Daylily: Curiosities!
On Robins
Since moving to the city, I have become a very devoted bird person.
I got spoiled by all the birds around our more wooded home in Nashville. They came to me so easily, so reliably, with such diversity, copiously. I enjoyed them, their company. And I took it for granted. I knew very little about the birds that came to visit us, to eat the food we left for them, the bugs that made their home in the trees in our yard.
When we moved up north, we moved right to the middle of our city, and suddenly the colorful garden of flowery birds I’d come to know, yellows and blues and reds, I was hard-pressed to find. I vowed to myself then to make my little city yard a place birds would like to be. Build it, as they say, and they will come.
And they have! And this time I have gotten to know them. Song and house sparrows, goldfinches, purple finches, Northern red cardinals, European starlings (ours have really not been as intense as people have suggested), two mourning doves, one downy woodpecker, and a hilarious quartet of pigeons with their loud, clumsy flight. But the bird who is capturing my fascination most these days is the robin.
Perhaps this is due to my son Auden’s recent obsession with the Aardman stop motion movie Robin Robin (which he calls “bwrbwr bwrbwr”). It’s a very funny, very heartwarming story of a little robin who wishes she was a mouse. Robin of Robin Robin is a European robin (let’s see how many times we can say robin). Obviously we don’t see those here in Michigan. But the association by name tucks them together in the filing cabinet of my mind.
An interesting tidbit about this naming: There’s an old Irish folk tale that says the European robin was there at the birth of Jesus, and got his red breast from the heat of a flame he painstakingly fanned to keep Mary and her baby warm. Another myth says there was a robin present at Jesus’s crucifixion, and when she removed a thorn from his temple, his blood turned her breast red (yikes). A bit awkward, this retelling—I am a Jew, after all—but a fascinating bit of bird history, isn’t it? Then, when the Christian settlers came this way with this sentiment warm in their colonial hearts, despite being only distantly related, the American robin was given the same name as the European robin, for the copper red breast they share.
While making Auden pancakes one morning, I watched a robin hop around our backyard. She seemed aimless mostly, until she’d abruptly stop and peck the ground, rising just as quickly with a worm in her beak. Like she knew, despite the layer of ground between them, exactly where that worm would be. I thought to myself, How on God’s green earth?
Robins have very keen eyesight, and can sense movements that are invisible to us. A worm worming near the surface will subtly shift blades of grass, for example, and the robin knows exactly what this means. There’s evidence too they can detect worms using only their hearing, which I find incredible. (Have you ever wondered what worms wiggling through the dirt sound like? Well, here you go! (And oh, this has me wondering so many things about badgers now—but those will have to wait for another newsletter.))
I’ve found that following the trails of these deeper wonderings, opening their doors and seeing what’s behind, makes ordinary lifestuff feel a little richer, a little sweeter. Being curious, being interested—it feels like a thread of connection between myself and that life which I wonder about. I was always neighbors with the robin, but perhaps now we are also friends. I think especially in these difficult days I could use more friends like this: taking each day as it comes, living quiet, simple lives, bringing with them each morning their knowing, their color, their song.
I’d like to end these “Curiosities” newsletters with a blessing, so here goes:
May you see something new in the commonplace today. May you find something worth having in the questions and the answers alike. May you love the world a little more as you wonder and learn, and may the world treat you kindly in return.
Ah, yes. I recognize this kind of random curiosity. Every day I'm grateful to have the-computer-that-is-my-phone to pursue those wonderings.
One of the bird factoids that I love is that the Continental Divide keeps some species one side or the other, so my brother in Los Angeles never gets to see the beautiful cardinals that we have everywhere here in Missouri 🐦...and he gets different hummingbirds than I will ever see here.
So interesting. Love this prompting - being curious helps me slow down and be present. Grateful for your curiosity shared with me.