3 December 2025

On Sunday at Duck Hollow we found hundreds of American robins loudly feasting on fruit in the ornamental trees and honeysuckle bushes. Flocks of 50 or more flew overhead heading south. Though I knew a snowstorm was coming in 36 hours I had not internalized it but the robins had. They were frantic to eat and run … or rather … fly south to avoid the storm.

The American robin (Turdus migratorius) flocks that visit Pittsburgh in November are on their way south, but slowly. They stay as long as there’s abundant fruit and the ground is not frozen or covered in snow. As soon as any of those conditions are met, they’re gone.

This time their departure was particularly abrupt. So many robins on Sunday, so few on Tuesday. No robins here among the snow.

Watch American robins’ week-to-week movements throughout the year in this eBird Status and Trends animation. Notice how they breed in Alaska and Canada and abandon them in winter. They are among the big flocks see in Pittsburgh in the non-breeding season.

And though we see a lot of robins in late fall and early spring, they are sadly declining in spring and summer. If you live in a Midwestern state (Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, northern Kentucky, Michigan, Wisconsin) or in the I-95 corridor from Massachusetts to DC, American robins are trending sharply downward during the breeding season. In the decade from 2012 to 2022 losses were -10% to -14.8%.

So many robins and now so few.