True Snow Birds
Who needs Florida?
I believe that if songbirds decide to live somewhere then it must be a great place, just in need of little music. After all, they can take to a wing and fly away at a moment's notice, but here at Ridges they take up yearlong, Michigan residence.
I spot a rather large flock of American robins each winter. Sometimes I find them in my front yard pear trees feasting away. They are such messy eaters that their scraps fall to the snow where the local deer herd skulks to snack like silent black hulks at three in the morning.
Most frequently in January and February fifty to two-hundred robins gather at the spring where they flit to the comparatively warm water flowing out from under a ridge. They bathe and drink and perhaps warm themselves in the perpetual ribbon of heat bubbling from the hill.
On the back forty they inhabit the blackberry patch, but find even more fruit overhead in the wild grapes clinging like frozen caviar to the vines twisting through the treetops. Winter foraging requires much greater caloric consumption to stay warm so the land must provide abundant food for them to return year after year.
At Ridges we maintain the manicured and the wild places side by side, one to appreciate the other. No need to travel all the way to Florida. Turns out we like the cold and I would hate to miss the song.
