[Tweeters] Robins & Marcia's Mystery Seeds

[Robert O'Brien]

Regarding Marcia's seeds dropping from a Robin's nest.
I mentioned this to my wife, knowledgeable in such matters, and she IDed
the 'seeds' sight unseen.  She confirmed when shown the photos Marcia sent
to me.
They appear to be the seeds of the massive, native  'Manroot'   plant.  Try
to guess the origin of this colloquial name.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marah_(plant)
This vine can compete, even as a native, with Kudzu.  We have them
everywhere here climbing up into the trees.  See the url above for the
stickery outside, mushy inside large fruits.
The spines aren't really that sharp and several seeds are contained
inside.  I have no idea why Robins would be involved.  We have 'zillions'
of nesting robins and 'scads' of Manroot fruits hanging from all the
trees.  We've never seen a connection between the two in 50 years here.
Really quite a mystery.
Doesn't seem like something a Robin would feed a baby and even if so, why
are they dropping?
Maybe the baby Robins find them disgusting while the mother views them as a
health food?

Bob OBrien Portand.
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