GARDENING:
Attract sweet, singing robins to brighten up your winter plot
WITH Christmas so close, let’s take a break from gardening and raise a glass to our favourite garden bird — the robin. A robin is every gardener’s friend. They’re in our back yards all year, singing sweetly in midwinter when most other birds are silent. With their striking red breasts and cheeky familiarity, they’re the easiest of birds to identify. But if you look closely, that breast is more orange than red, set off by olive-brown upper wings.
Robins are closely associated with Christmas. Victorian postmen wore red uniforms and were nicknamed ‘Robins’. So that could explain why so many Christmas cards feature them.
But in a season when so many birds are silent, perky robins are melodiously at large. They may look sweet and appealing. But among small garden birds, these are aggressive blighters.
The red breast serves as a warning to other robins. In rough translation, it says: ‘This is my territory. Clear out or I’ll attack and I’m not joking.’
let a robin glimpse a fake rival bird or just a tuft of red feathers and he’ll attack ferociously.
FEELING AT HOME
THEIR natural habitat is open woodland, hedgerows and areas with bushes and undergrowth. Most gardens have some or all of these components. But they’re decoratively laid out and regularly groomed, rather than left to grow wild.
For robins, that doesn’t matter a fig. They’re as happy among clipped hedges and tidy borders as in a wild bosky landscape. Whatever the size of your garden, it’s almost certain to be appealing.
That’s why the birds are so common in parks and gardens. Across Britain, robins are often more abundant in leafy city suburbs than in open farmland. And unlike so much wildlife, they are doing pretty well.
Their UK population is roughly seven million breeding pairs. Nevertheless, with climate change their f uture is l ess certain. So if you can make your garden more nature friendly, robins will also benefit.
Feeding soil with homemade compost increases populations of earthworms and other invertebrates. That’s good for robins and improves soil health. Areas of rough grass and even tiny flower meadows carry rich insect populations, so those help, too.
If there’s room for a log pile, robins could even choose that as a nesting site. Then you can watch them rearing their young — usually two broods per year.
GETTING FAMILIAR
DESPITE being fiercely territorial, robins are quick to make friends with humans. While weeding or digging, you can tempt a curious bird closer by tossing earthworms in its direction.
Knowing that you’re productive, the bird will cautiously approach. let it come to you. Eventually, a confident bird will feed from your hand.
Robins nest in low nooks and crannies, often among tree roots or in an old, dense hedge. As a boy i n rural Norfolk, I found many nests in disused rabbit holes.
The robin’s song is dual purpose. In winter it sounds wistful. Its function then may be to woo a potential mate. But, later, the song grows louder and edgy — warning interlopers to hop it.
Young robins are speckled, with no red breast — so are never attacked. Their colour comes after the first moult in l ate summer. By then, the parents chase them away to find new territories and to begin their adult lives elsewhere.