Do robins have tongues? I never thought much about this question until I looked at the shots I took this past weekend of American Robins (Turdus migratorius) at Huntley Meadows Park in Northern Virginia.
As a child, I was told that robins were a harbinger of spring and that may have been the case in Massachusetts. Clearly that is not the case where I live now, for an entire flock of robins was present in the park in what I would still consider the middle of winter.
Some of the robins were pecking about on the ground, but many of them were drawn to some kind of vegetation that had bluish-colored berries. I usually think of robins eating worms, so it was fascinating to watch them pick and swallow berries, acting much like Cedar Waxwings.
When reviewing my photos, I saw what appeared to be a tongue in some of my images, so I did a little research. It turns out that robins do have tongues that they use to help them swallow fruit. In fact, different birds use their tongues for a wide variety of purposes, as Laura Erickson illustrates wonderfully in a blog posting entitled “More about Bird Tongues than a Normal Person Would Want to Know.”
In the first image below, the robin has just grabbed the berry and is starting to pull it in. In the second image, the tongue is more clearly visible and the process has moved along a bit. I hoped to get a shot of the final step in swallowing the berry, but the robin turned its head to the side at that moment.
Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Mike Powell 