A song at daybreak
The robin sings at dawn.
Start there, rather than with facts and human preamble, because that is how the day begins. Before I get up, before my mind is occupied with the daily scheming, a sound already begins to work on me, gradually penetrating my dreams and pulling me imperceptibly towards consciousness, flowing in through my open window like the first pallor of dawn.
I open my eyes (our ears, remember, are never really closed). The objects of the room are still dark and shadowed, but not quite so dark as they were the night before. I stand and walk out the door. There are still stars overhead and the world sleeps: no jays call, the titmice are silent, and even the busy crows and towhees cling a little longer to their hiding places. No dogs bark, no machines are running, and even the inescapable hum of traffic has grown vague and intermittent.
But someone is awake, and his announcement of that fact is ringing out. Deedle-eee! the voice rises from a treetop. Di-dee it falls. The robin on the other side of the yard makes a competing claim, but on one subject they are in complete agreement: the day has begun and there is no more time for silence. This second song is not identical to that of the closer bird, the words are different, and a little faster, but the pattern is the same, rising and falling, and each rising phrase seems a little longer than the falling phrase, as if each step downwards were just a preparation for a jump, the compression of a spring before an expansion. Now there are four robins singing, some steady and unhurried, some eager and urgent, but all their voices busy, rising and lifting.
What in mundane daylight sounds like just another singing bird seems magnified and grander in this early morning quiet. Just birds, but sounding as if they are channeling greater forces, their chants like Homeric invocations: Sing in me, Muse.
Or like a Stoic exhortation, vividly awake and confident that you too will sleep no longer: Come now to the contest. You have entered the stadium and the time for living is now.
Like a series of heaves on a winch, the voices pull and rest, pull and rest, and the sun is tied to the other end of the line.
The robin’s song in its common form is too well known to most of us to require particular description, and too truly music to lend itself well to syllabic imitation.
There was no need to spell out the song in clumsy transliteration because everyone already knew it, could hear it in their minds as a part of a shared cultural heritage, as they might know the melody to the Ode to Joy or Auld Lang Syne, except more so. And it wasn’t just the bird students who could be assumed to know what a robin’s voice sounded like. The general public would know enough to understand and enjoy popular song lyrics like these:When the red, red robin
Comes bob, bob, bobbin along, along,
There’ll be no more sobbin’
When he starts throbbin’
His old sweet song:
Wake up, wake up, you sleepy head
Get up, get up, get out of bed,
Cheer up, cheer up, The sun is red
Live, love, laugh and be happy!
– Harry M. Woods, 1926
Sing it, Satch: “Cheer up, cheer up” is basically the standard mnemonic for this song (along with minor variations involving “cheerily” and “cheerio”). The cadence of this song reproduces the pattern and tone of the actual bird song: simplistic and naive it may be, but it shows more ornithological accuracy than many more lyrically sophisticated invocations of birds. But today you can’t take knowledge of any bird for granted. Let’s cover the basics. This is a robin and this is what his spring song sounds like:
Photo by Becky Matsubara
A medium-sized bird, slightly larger than a jay, with a orange-red breast, gray back, and yellow bill. The song has a lilting, up and down pattern that rises and falls, rises and falls. It is generally fairly loud and ringing, giving an impression of strength, confidence, and optimism to most human ears. The slightly more detailed mnemonic that attempts to capture both this alternation between similar but different upwards and downwards phrases, as well as the optimistic register, is something like “cheerily, cheer-up, cheerio!”
Everyone finds it a pleasant sound. The generally fairly conservative Joseph Grinnell wrote accurately of both the robin’s habitual singing schedule and his musical quality in a Sierra Club Bulletin of June 1911:
At times during the day we hear bursts of robin melody. But at early morning and late evening the robin chorus pervades far and wide what would otherwise be a nearly perfect stillness. The trite word ‘carol’ to my mind and ear describes the robin’s song satisfactorily; and several robins caroling at once furnish a type of bird music unapproached in pleasing quality by any other species I have ever heard.
If you were to break it down a little, I think you’d find the basic uplifting effect to largely come from the literal rising in pitch, that encourages and leads us forward. This is a normal human response: when we hear a question ending with an upward lilt, we invariably are left hanging – and what’s next? The same thing happens in music. When Hamilton’s revolutionary companions want to encourage mass uprising with a simple refrain of “Ri-ise up! Ri-ise up!” the notes naturally go up. It just wouldn’t feel right to go down in pitch in such a context. The robin is the great upriser.
Of course, these muffled, tamed, and digitized recordings don’t do the slightest justice to the performer. Imagine listening to a great blast of trombones at the volume you just played that song at. Really, you need to listen to the real thing. Fortunately, that’s easy to do, even late in the nesting season as I write this in July: nearly every neighborhood has its robins, ubiquitous and ready singers. Especially if you’re willing to get up early. Aldo Leopold wrote of his early morning listening sessions in “Great Possessions” in A Sand County Almanac:
Like other great landowners, I have tenants. They are negligent about rents, but very punctilious about tenures. Indeed at every daybreak from April to July they proclaim their boundaries to each other, and so acknowledge, at least by inference, their fiefdom to me.
For him, the field sparrows started singing at 3:35 in a Wisconsin July. He was slightly more northerly than we are, so we might start a little later in the day. But not much! Our singing also peaks earlier in the year: March to early May see the maximum volume.
Before the field sparrows have quite gone the rounds, the robin in the big elm warbles loudly his claim to the crotch where the icestorm tore off a limb, and appurtenances pertaining thereto (meaning, in his case, all the angleworms in the not-very-spacious subjacent lawn).
One clue if you’re seeking a singing robin: he does indeed usually choose a high treetop perch to establish this subjacency of territory. For us, and for much of the country, the robin is the first singer of the morning, often beginning when the sky is still black and full of stars. Try getting up and going outside around 4 AM some morning. California summers are not cold and getting up early for once won’t hurt you. Who are your tenants? Do you hear the robin?
Robin song is powerful music in itself, but it is also ideal as a basis of comparison to others. The thrush family to which it belongs counts among its members many of our finest singers, here including the hermit thrush and Swainson’s thrush, as well as the somewhat eerily magical varied thrush. (What traits unite thrushes? Thin, insect-eating beaks, a ground-feeding habit, resemblance of voice, and, in the words of Scott Wiedensaul, “large eyes which give the impression if not the reality of intelligence.”) Listen to these other songs for a better grasp of both the commonality of that fluting thrush tone, as well as the unique elements of each.
More delicately flutey
Single notes, no rising and falling
And then there are multiple unrelated birds whose songs are notably similar to the robin, the chief local examples being the black-headed grosbeak and the western tanager. Neither of these has a close common ancestor, instead the songs presumably developed through long-term imitation of the robin, much the most common and widespread bird. Why? Presumably because the robin’s song was particularly efficacious for its evolutionary purpose of declaring territory and demonstrating fitness, because it is a particularly effective communication of health and strength. Even us tone-deaf humans can hear it!
“The operatic robin”
“The slightly sore-throated robin”
Is there any legitimacy in my casual blending of human aesthetic impressions and objectively evaluated evolutionary function? (If you are not up to speed on the basic “purpose” of birdsong as currently defined by the scientists, see my introductory How to Learn Birdsong.) It is very easy to make entirely erroneous conclusions, such as to declare that the robin sounds and therefore is particularly “happy” when he sings. He is presumably no happier than the melancholy-sounding hermit thrush.
But the existence of an evolutionary function is no reason why we shouldn’t have our own independent aesthetic response (the hermit thrush song is lovely in a melancholy way), and when our instinctive human response happens to align with the purported function of the song then we should embrace the opportunity to make a naturally-occurring, yet still accurate behavioral inference. The robin song is expressive of health and vigor: that’s what it sounds like and that’s what it is.
Nietzsche once wrote that life is justified only as an aesthetic phenomenon. This is an expression of the continued interest of the world even without theologically-derived purpose, authoritative dictates of good and bad, or posthumous punishment or reward. You don’t have to follow him all the way to admit that there are areas of existence where there is little direct religious or philosophic guidance to follow, moments when we are simply chance witnesses to strange and wonderful phenomena.
Our reaction to a singing robin fits in this category. We are free to react to birdsong however we like; this is a beautiful, invigorating song; therefore, I will enjoy it! Some moderns retreat behind a wall of scientific reticence to exclude all human-accessible meaning from the speech of birds. Others are eager to believe they understand the dawn chorus, but hardly bother distinguishing its different voices and place them all under an undifferentiated umbrella of pleasant auditory backdrop. Listening closely to robins is the best antidote to either extreme.
Besides the singing
Many people have the impression that robins are a bird of spring. Here in the Bay Area, that impression is highly erroneous. Historically, in fact, they were birds of winter, with summer breeding grounds just barely making it into the North Bay in a few scattered locations. Instead, northerly or mountain-breeding birds would descend into the Bay Area lowlands in winter as breeding territories grew devoid of the invertebrates and berries which robins feed on. This movement continues today, with an influx of robins each fall, varying from year to year depending on the availability of food sources elsewhere.
These winter robins are also worth paying attention to, even if they sing less often. In lieu of those territorial demonstrations of paired birds, winter robins travel in flocks, moving between different berry-bearing trees in both native woodlands (madrone, toyon) and planted suburbia (pyracantha, Chinese pistache, camphor), and periodically descending upon lawns at dawn or after a rain when the worms are nearest the surface. They cock their heads sideways and look along the surface, watching for tell-tale, barely subterranean movement.
These winter flocks provide the best opportunities for hearing some of robins’ other vocalizations. One of their favorite alarm calls is the high cheep! followed by a series of lower clucks. They also enjoy whinnying, as books often describe it with horse language. I like to think of it as a sudden, forceful chuckle, as from an unwilling victim of ferocious tickling: hehehehehe! Here is a recording of some fairly placid clucking, followed by a tickle-whinny:
So goes the winter.
Nowadays, we do have lots of spring birds as well: modern human colonization has expanded the robin breeding range. Robins look for areas with trees or other structures for nest sites, adjacent clearings for foraging, and a source of mud for the inner layer of their nests. We have provided these by planting trees in tree-less areas, making clearings in forest areas, and everywhere bringing irrigation that creates mud within the previously bone-dry California summer. Now they are a common nesting bird almost everywhere except for dense, continuous forest. Around suburban homes, they may nest in trees, but are also known for nesting on human structures such as hanging wreaths or convenient ledges under eaves and overhangs.
Such close ties between humans and robins go way back. Their name, of course, is the most obvious evidence of this: how many other birds have been given a human name? Early colonists named the bird Robin, reminded by its red breast of the European Robin from back home, a smaller and quite dissimilar member of the thrush family.
Speaking of human representations of robins and their variable accuracy: comics. Robins are one of the go-to birds for artists, with a simple, recognizable two-tone color scheme and widespread, cross-country presence.
Do any of these depictions add subtlety and nuance to your appreciation of robins? In specific detail, probably not. But in aggregate, they point to the broad and ongoing alliance between people and this bird. Think again of the name. “Robin” is not in high popularity these days as a commonly encountered appellation, but it is the form of Robert undoubtedly most apropos to a perky general partner in multi-species existence. If Robin Hood had tried to publicize his exploits under the nom de guerre of Robert Hood or Bob Hood, it just wouldn’t have worked, wouldn’t have conveyed that same chipper, blithe disregard of authority that “Robin” does.
People called this bird “Robin,” as they did its European predecessor, because it invited convivial relations, because it was close and friendly and familiar. With no other bird has this closeness become so much of an institution and a habit. Think of our other bird names: inherited words of etymological antiquity, onomatopoeic neologism, and straightforward descriptive classifications abound, but very few birds have managed to hold intact to a person’s name, which is also to say a people’s name and a personable name, a name that common everyday folk back in England would bestow with everyday familiarity on their local Robin, and which fresh arrivals in New England would similarly bestow upon their new red-breasted acquaintance. If you are seeking greater intimacy with our local birds, you could do worse than to begin with one with whom, despite our many failings, we have managed to keep on first name terms.
A song at nightfall
Daylight faded evenly from the sky, not going down in a glorious flaming cloud heap in the west, but simply withdrawing from summer’s canopy of uninterrupted blue. Now it is gray, soon it will be black. The birds withdrew from the feeder in the same way, inconspicuously growing quieter and less numerous, until the seeds and nuts sit untouched. It has grown too dark for feeding; it is time to take shelter.
But it is not too dark for song. The mundane work of the day is done, but food has been plentiful, the air is still warm, and the treetop is safe enough. A robin sings again, then two, then three, their voices foghorns or lighthouses as the sky grows dark, landmarks that create an audible map that seems ever clearer and more distinct as the accustomed visible map disappears. Three robins, each with his own territory simultaneously demarcated in waves of song, where before I was misled by fences and driveways and superfluous things.
Cheerio, cheerily, cheer-up, hissely. The old song: three parts forthright declaration, one part reflective hesitancy. Those last higher, almost whispered notes were absent from the dawn song this morning, when all was forward looking. Now it strikes a balance. Hermit thrushes confine themselves to that higher register, that dreamlike music that leads to reflection without action. You can’t live there all the time.
The old robin song, here not in greeting of what is imminent, what is known and expected and confidently awaited, as it was at dawn, but in confidence nonetheless that life continues, that the day’s disputes and competitions will resume after the night’s temporary blank, that the myriad concerns of humans are just passing distractions, and that the sun will rise in the morning.
It sings with power, like a bird of great faith that sees the bright future through the dark present, to reassure the race of man, like one to whom many talents were given and who will improve its talents. They are sounds to make a dying man live.
– Thoreau, The Journal, April 21, 1852
It is easy to live in the morning. Every bird song invigorates at dawn. But there are fewer voices at dusk; there is less energy to spare, less strength to spill over. Weariness is natural.
Tell that to Robin.
- Incidentally, dragons were native only to Northern Europe and East Asia, and were not present in the Americas. You can’t have everything. They have since been extirpated through a combination of hunting and the decline of their preferred habitat of giant treasure mounds in favor of paper and digital currency.
Wonderful, wonderful – thank you!!
There is another sound I had the pleasure of hearing Robins make. One late summer afternoon my wife and I were hiking back at Indian Tree here in Novato. There’s a large ravine that you hike next to pretty far up. As we were approaching it around a east facing point, turning back west toward the top of the ravine there was a sudden rush of air. The kind of sudden sound that raises the hair on your neck and arms. It was the sound of a hundred pairs of wings suddenly taking flight. Then we saw the biggest flock of robins I’ve ever seen come winging around the point in a cloud of hurrying birds. It was so thrilling we stood there for several minutes hoping against hope that they would repeat the performance. Once in a lifetime moment. Apparently they congregate in large numbers there in summer. You will hear them singing. Nature is a surprise gift waiting to be found if you make yourself available.