Like the wedges of geese high in the blue, the first robins are a welcome sign of spring to snow-bound residents of Canada and the northern states. The original robin (also of the thrush family) was the British bird, half the size of its North American relative. Early settlers, homesick, were reminded of their beloved robin redbreast because of the rufous chest of the American bird hence they adopted the name.

A few robins can be found every winter in the cedars on my estate in Connecticut, but there is something different, more assertive about the spring arrivals that sing among the dogwood blossoms in my garden. In the late fall the dogwood berries attract hordes of robins from the north. Although robins were originally woodland birds, nesting from Alaska and the tree line in Canada to the mountains of southern Mexico, they seem to have found towns and farms more to their liking.

- Roger Tory Peterson