Does this song sound familiar to you, “cheerily, cheer up, cheer up, cheerily, cheer up?”

If so, you may be hearing the early-morning sounds of our spring favorites, the robins. These rusty red bellied thrushes are returning during the early weeks of March. Therefore, keep watch for these symbols of warm-day redemption.

You may find that robins are easy to spot and observe. Robins are well adapted to suburban and urban areas where lawns provide the most suitable landscape for foraging.

Robins are also found in forests, woodlands and gardens. The robin is described as a large thrush 8 to 11 inches in length, with a gray back and wings, a red belly and a dark gray head with white markings around the eyes.

Females may be lighter in color than the males, and juvenile robins appear relatively the same as adult birds; however, the juvenile has a white neck with a black-speckled under belly.

As you may know, the classic image of a robin typically includes an earthworm dangling from its beak.

Earthworms and other insects make up the robin's primary diet during the breeding seasons, while fruit and berries are favorable to the robin during the winter months.

If you are interested in attracting the robin to your bird feeder, preferable feeder foods include bread, corn, dried and fresh fruit, nutmeats, peanut butter and suet. Types of plants that attract a robin for both food and shelter sources include the black gum, mulberry, oak and pokeberry trees, as well as the American holly, blackberry, raspberry, blueberry and elderberry shrubs.

Robins are early breeders that tend to be the first birds to lay eggs.

The robin lays an average of three eggs that are the iconic color robin's egg blue. Eggs hatch about two weeks after the laying period, and juveniles fledge close to two weeks after hatching.

Statistics claim that about 40 percent of nests successfully produce young, and 25 percent of those survivors fledge and thrive until the fall months.

As a whole, the robin population turns over approximately every six years, while some robin's may live for more than 10 years.

An interesting fact, provided by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, is that the robin serves as an important indicator of chemical pollution.

Due to a robin's lawn feeding habits, the bird becomes vulnerable to pesticide poisoning.

Therefore, if you notice a die off of robins on your property, you may want to assess the quantity of your pesticide use before wildlife integrity is adversely impacted.

Visit http://counties.cce. cornell.edu/cayuga/cayuga. html to read about low impact pesticide use, and to find out more about robins, call Cornell Cooperative Extension of Cayuga County at 255-1183.

Sara Richards is an AmeriCorps Environmental Education Assistant at Cornell Cooperative Extension of Cayuga County.