{"id":135939,"date":"2014-12-15T18:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-12-15T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/?guid=a7c6df2edb631845d5753325085e5a92"},"modified":"2026-07-16T07:59:42","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T06:59:42","slug":"spring-birds-in-winter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/spring-birds-in-winter\/","title":{"rendered":"Spring Birds in Winter"},"content":{"rendered":"

Robins eat worms and insects and fresh fruits and berries when they can get them.<\/p>\n

We typically see robins stalking worms in short grass all through summer. When winter comes and the insects and worms hole up, robins change to a diet primarily of dried fruit.<\/p>\n

Some robins migrate to warmer places, but some just disappear from lawns and form winter flocks that travel to different kinds of foraging areas.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Remember the polar vortex winter we had last year? This robin came to my window every cold morning of it with his feathers so puffed up he looked downright chubby. I fed him raisins for breakfast straight through untilspring. He’s back! He (or someone who looks just like him) started looking in my windows a few weeks ago and is back in the habit of breakfasting on raisins at my place.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
White-throated sparrows are behaving differently in deference to winter, too. They have started to show up on my porch where Ihaven’t seen them since last winter. I see them in the neighborhood all year, but they only visit the porch in winter (even though they would likely find a snack of seeds in any season). Click to enlarge.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
New York City’s northern mockingbirds tend to stay put during the winter, but it might seem like they have gone south. We are used to their flashy wing-waving and tireless singing; in winter they become relatively quiet. They visit my porch for raisins.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
I usually hear my favorites, the blue jays, before I see them. I give them peanuts in the shell. They make repeated trips until they have gathered them all. But they have to share with…<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
Northern cardinals that always seem happy to pose in the snow in return for peanuts…<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
and Brooklyn squirrels!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Remember the polar vortex winter we had last year? This robin came to my window every cold morning of it with his feathers so puffed up he looked downright chubby. I fed him raisins for breakfast straight through until spring. He’s back! He (or so…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":99,"featured_media":2148429,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6984,5],"tags":[6605,3172,2365,2043,2450,4699,254,1164,780,2068,2648],"class_list":["post-135939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blogs","category-wildlife","tag-blue-jay","tag-brooklyn","tag-hare","tag-jay","tag-julie-feinstein","tag-mockingbird","tag-northern-cardinal","tag-northern-mockingbird","tag-robin","tag-rook","tag-white-throated-sparrow"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/99"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135939"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135939\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2148429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}