Robin feeders

What robins eat

American robins eat earthworms, insects and fruit. In spring and summer they pull worms from lawns and take insects and snails, and they eat a great range of fruit, among them chokecherries, hawthorn, dogwood and sumac fruits and juniper berries, Cornell’s All About Birds notes. By Audubon’s count fruit makes up perhaps 60 percent of a robin’s food over the year, most of it in winter. Their young are raised mainly on insects and worms.

Why robins pass the seed feeder by

A robin’s slim bill is made for worms and fruit rather than cracking seed, and it feeds on the ground, running and pausing across open lawn. Robins do come to feeders, All About Birds says, but for the food they already eat: put mealworms or fruit low and in the open, near the lawn they hunt, and a tube or hopper of seed can stay for the other birds.

Bluebird feeders with 1½ in entry holes keep robins out, since a robin is far bigger than a bluebird; an open dish, a tray or a raised dome lets one in.

Robins in winter

Many robins spend the winter far north of where people expect them. They leave lawns for treetops and fruiting shrubs and roam in flocks, so they can seem to have gone when they are a few streets away, and the “first robin of spring” may be a bird that wintered a few miles off, Audubon notes. Shrubs and trees that hold their fruit into winter feed them best; soaked raisins or apple pieces on a tray, and open water, help when the berries run out.

Keep it fresh

Fruit and mealworms spoil quickly in warm weather. Put out what the robins finish in a day, clear what is left in the evening, and wash the dish or tray every few days.