(Reprinted from the Aug. 24, 2001 Suburban News)

We were sitting at the table having late morning coffee, when as many as 10 robins started to attract us. A honeysuckle bush on one side of our bird feeding area that was covered with red seed berries was being literally attacked by those robins; two, three or more at a time were landing in the bush and picking the berries.

Normally my thoughts regarding robins are that they are a harbinger of spring and are spotted in the very early days as a welcome sight.

They are usually spotted alone, or maybe in a pair, as they kick around the leaf cover looking for worms or maybe a bug or two. I had never seen them in a group effort or even eating honeysuckle berries before.

In their midst this day was a blue jay and he was swearing at them for stealing his berries right in the middle of his territory.

All summer we have seen robins on the lawn in the morning; or moving up and down the driveway.

A highbush blueberry near the driveway had been loaded with green berries but they never seemed to get ripe before they were gone, vanished, devoured. I had blamed our blue jay family; but maybe the robins had helped themselves there, too.

Our grandchildren have found a few broken and empty blue robin’s eggs nearby. A robin family hatches three to five eggs at a time in its mud and grass nests. They are known to have two or three annual broods so maybe what we saw was their whole season’s family feeding at once.

They sometimes even ruin a cherry crop. We still love having them around and I know others do, as they are the state bird of Connecticut, Virginia, Michigan and Wisconsin.