Baby robins

This is the time of year baby robins are everywhere, including our yard.

They're at that clumsy, adorable stage where they can fly – sorta – but can't quite feed themselves. As a result, the parent robins hop all over the yard hunting for worms, which they stuff into their twittering and insatiable offsprings' gullets.

Watching adult robins hunt for worms is fun. They hunt by sight, sound, and feel. The most classic pose is head cocked, aiming one eye and one ear toward the ground, then pouncing and pulling the worm from its hole.

A few days ago I watched an adult use this technique and then seized and tried to pull out a l-o-o-o-o-n-g worm. I'm talking five or six inches long. It tugged and tugged at the annelid until finally it snapped free. Then it was tasked with stuffing this enormous meal down the throat of one of its chicks. Let's just say it took the fledgling quite a while to gulp that monster down ... but gulp it it did.

Spring in the country.