I promise. This is the last bird post for a while.
I had been trying to take pictures of the American Robins that I see every morning on my way to work, except my camera and these beautiful red breasted birds don't seem to want to connect.

Today, I was walking back home from work and saw him sitting on the lawn, unperturbed by the kids playing ball around him. It was a marvelous sight. I never thought I would see a bird sitting fearlessly amongst so much chaos. I ran as quickly as I could into the house to get my camera. When I couldn't find my good one, I brought out my old kodak point-and-shoot and ran back to where he was. The bird was still there-not quite in the same place, but sitting on a more bare surface with little grass and pecking on the pink sakura petals. I walked towards him, almost at touching distance and he still stayed put, not budging an inch. But somehow, just as I pulled out my camera from my pocket, he started hopping a few steps away at a time. The closer I went towards him, the further he moved. While this whole game of follow-your-leader was a lot of fun, my hopeless camera wasn't cooperating. It wouldn't zoom enough and the pictures turned out badly too. Still, I shot some with the hope that I will take better ones some other day. The Robin is in for some serious shooting and he doesn't even have a hood to hide under! ;)

Note: By the way, this is NOT Lil' Robin - the Northern Cardinal. I caught a glimpse of him hiding behind the woods today. But he can only hide for so long. At some point he has to reveal himself in the open!

--

This is an image from wikipedia that does a better job of displaying the American Robin than my low grade pics. Notice the bright yellow beak, the orange-red breast contrasting with the elegant greyish wings and the stark black head with a broken white eye ring. The more you look at him, the more charming he gets. I bet he's even aware of that.

He even has the most beautiful song and vocalizes clearly. I love hearing him sing, except on weekend mornings when it gets a little annoying, because he just won't stop singing.

Wikipedia says:

The male American Robin, as with many thrushes, has a beautiful, complex and almost continuous song. Its song is commonly described as a cheerily carol, made up of discrete units, often repeated, and spliced together into a string with brief pauses in between.[17] The song varies regionally, and its style varies by time of day. The song period is from early March in California to late July or early August; some birds, particularly in the east, sing occasionally into September or later. The American Robin is often among the first songbirds singing as dawn rises, and last as evening sets in. It usually sings from a high perch in a tree.[10] The song of T. m. confinis is weaker than that of the nominate subspecies, and lacks any clear notes.