Robins

With Christmas approaching, one bird immediately comes to mind – the little robin redbreast. Robins cling to their territory and seem to form a uniquely close relationship with humans who share their area. One of the most rewarding aspects of working in the garden on cold winter days is the constant companionship of a robin, which follows you around taking advantage of your digging and clearing to help itself to a meal of freshly turned worms, millipedes and other tasty insects.
 
Legend has it that the robin got its redbreast because it was pricked by Christ’s crown of thorns and the flow of blood stained his chest feathers, and because of this and its constancy during the long winter months, the robin has become a favourite on Christmas cards and decoration. Traditions also go back many centuries about how bad luck will come to anyone harming a robin - “Who killed Cock Robin?”
 
Before man chopped down and built over so much of the natural landscape over the last mere 5000 years, robins would have been forest dwellers, pecking around in the leaf litter on the floor of oak forests and ancient woodlands to find beetles and grubs. David Lack in his wonderful book “The Life of the Robin” noted how robins take advantage of the heavy work done by stronger species like pheasants which disturb the ground more effectively, especially during freezing winters which kill a very high proportion of robins. Next time you are digging your vegetable patch and a robin is lurking a yard or two away, ready to leap in if you move away for a few seconds, bear in mind that he probably sees you as a variant of badger, pig or wild boar, which its ancestors will have followed as faithfully as today he sits by you. Lack even saw a robin waiting where a mole was tunnelling, ready to grab a turned up worm before the hard-working mole could get its reward.
 
Adult robins pair off as early as January, though the female will suffer a sustained torrent of territorial aggression for hours, perhaps days, as her persistence steadily wears down the male’s resistance; he will fight males that come too close. That chirpy male song is as much warning as attraction. Pair-bonding will continue until nest-building begins in spring. Nests are clearly very common, but notoriously difficult to find – adults will not want to show you where they have hidden it. They are inventive and opportunistic in their choice of site, though feminists will not be surprised to learn that only the female builds. In the natural world they favour hollows in banks or on the ground, using moss, hair and leaves to line it.
 
Man’s influence cannot be by-passed. Apart from bird-boxes (available shortly from Cabragh Wetlands) they have been known to use jam jars, a boot, a drawer in the garden shed and a human skull. Lack records a gardener hanging his coat in the tool shed at 9.15; when he took it down at 1.00 to go for dinner, a nest was almost complete in the pocket. One pair nested in a horse-drawn cart, which then set off on a 200-mile round trip after the eggs had hatched. Catastrophe? No. The loyal, hard-working parents flew with the cart, collecting food to feed their young on the journey and keeping them alive until they all got back to their precious home territory.
 
Enjoy your robins this winter, and do your bit to give them food, shelter and open water. They are as tame a wild creature as you will find.