See Sit Spot Challenge at Kamana.org for more about the challenge.
Time of sit: 7:45-8:30pm
I opted to recline against the south side of a spruce this evening. Temperatures were cool and there was a light wind out of the southeast.
As I arrived where I planned to sit, a robin was singing to the southeast, but another robin flew from above me to perch near the first robin in some alders. The singing robin flew off to the west, and a second robin flew from the branches somewhere above me and landed near the other still perched on the alders. A few moments later they both flew off to the southeast. The first robin now started singing to the west of my location – probably from the trees near the museum. I am guessing the robin doing the singing is trying to set up territory while the other two were probably migrants not planning to stay in this area. I’m not sure why the singing bird so quickly gave up its perch, though.
The robin kept singing to my west for quite some time. After 10 minutes or more, it flew over my head and landed a ways off to my east. It gave a very short snippet of song, but was mostly quiet. The sun had set, and while it was still light, it was getting darker – so I thought perhaps the robin was done for the night. However, after a few minutes the robin gave a few chirps then flew back to where it had been singing west of my position. It was still singing there when I went inside a few minutes later.
I wondered about the locations this robin was choosing to sing. At first I was thinking it would probably singing along the edges of what it wanted to consider its territory, however it wasn’t clear to me what shape of territory it might be wanting to stake out if this was true, considering the locations I heard it.