American robins are so common that it is easy to overlook how odd some of their habits are. These seven facts sound made up but hold up against research from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Journey North and published studies. Each entry notes what the evidence actually shows, including where popular versions of the fact go too far.
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See Today's Price1. A “redbreast” with an orange breast
Look closely at an American robin and the breast is brick orange, not red. The name is older than the color word. English speakers were calling the European robin “redbreast” by the 1400s, and orange was not recorded as a color name in English until 1502, well after the fruit arrived. Older English described that hue as a kind of red or yellow-red. When colonists reached North America, they gave the familiar name to a new orange-breasted bird. Both sexes have the orange breast, though females are usually paler than males.
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2. Robins can find worms by sound
That head-tilting pose on the lawn looks like listening, and it partly is. Early work in the 1960s concluded robins hunt mainly by sight. Then a 1997 study in the journal Animal Behaviour tested captive robins in an aviary. The birds still found buried mealworms when researchers blocked visual, smell and vibration cues, and they did worse when noise masked sounds. The study suggests robins can use hearing to locate prey. In the wild they most likely combine sight and sound, so the tilted head does double duty.
3. A baby robin may eat about 14 feet of earthworms
According to Journey North, a single young robin may eat about 14 feet of earthworms during its roughly two weeks in the nest. That works out to about a foot a day, and worms are not even the only thing on the menu. For the first few days, parents feed nestlings partly digested food. By about day five they bring earthworms broken into small bites, and later whole worms and large insects. Both parents do the feeding.
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4. Robins can live almost 14 years, but most do not come close
The oldest known wild American robin lived 13 years and 11 months. That is the record, not the norm. According to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, only about 25 percent of young robins that leave the nest survive to November. After that, roughly half of the robins alive in a given year make it to the next. The whole population turns over about every six years on average. So the robin on your lawn is most likely only a year or two old.
5. Male robins will fight their own reflection
In spring, a male robin defending his territory can mistake his reflection in a window, car mirror or other shiny surface for a rival. He flies at the glass, taps and flutters, and may come back to the same spot day after day. The behavior is common in robins, cardinals and mockingbirds and usually fades once the breeding season winds down in summer. To stop it, break up the reflection. Cover the outside of the glass with netting, a sheet or a matte window film until the bird moves on.
6. The American robin is a thrush, not a true robin
The American robin belongs to the thrush family, Turdidae, alongside bluebirds and the wood thrush. The European robin that it was named after belongs to a different family, the Old World flycatchers. The two are not close relatives. The American bird is also far bigger, at roughly 8 to 11 inches long. You can see the thrush connection in young robins. Juveniles have heavily spotted breasts like other thrushes, and the spots fade as they molt into adult plumage. For lookalikes, see our guide to birds that look like robins.
7. A pair can raise up to three broods in one season
American robins usually nest twice a year and sometimes three times. Each clutch is typically three to five sky-blue eggs. The female builds the nest and incubates for about 12 to 14 days, and the young leave the nest about two weeks after hatching. The male often tends the fledglings while the female starts the next nest. Three full broods could mean more than a dozen eggs in a season, but many eggs and chicks are lost to predators and weather. That is one reason robins nest again so quickly.
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