January 2016

No doubt many of the Christmas cards that you sent or received this year featured a robin.  Just why it should be associated with Christmas is probably something to do with its prominence in the winter.  Evergreen Christmas card subjects like holly, ivy and mistletoe are also more noticeable when the deciduous trees have shed their leaves.  Snow also features because more than anything else, it makes the red breast of the robin really stand out.

Robin - Erithacus rubecula

Christmas cards that show robins as cute friendly creatures (often wearing a red fur-trimmed hat!) have, of course, got it completely wrong.  It is certainly a bold bird and if you walk through woods and see a small bird hopping about within a few yards of you, you can be almost certain it’s a robin.  The same will happen if you dig over your vegetable patch, and in both cases the bird is being bold because you are providing it with food – walking through woods disturbs the leaf litter and exposes insects and other invertebrates as much as digging does.  The robin will also aggressively defend a good source of food and will chase off other birds from a bird table until it has had its fill.

It is not only food that prompts aggressive behaviour either.  The robin is highly territorial and will firmly chase off any rival males that invade what he considers to be his patch (unless the other male happens to be more aggressive, in which case he will have to find another patch).  Curiously though, he will also chase off female robins.   To our eyes, male and female robins are identical, so maybe the male robin can’t tell the difference either.  Somehow I doubt that and suspect it is more to do with selecting a more determined mate.  She will have to approach him several times and do some determined flirting before he finally accepts her.  Having established his territory, he will advertise it with his familiar song that warns off other males and attracts prospective mates – well you didn’t think it was for our benefit did you?  He will sing when you put food out because the patch needs to be defended more, not out of gratitude.

Redpoll - Carduelis flammea

Bullfinch - Pyrrhula pyrrhula

If it was only the robin’s red breast that made the association with Christmas, then there are plenty more candidates.  The breasts of the chaffinch and brambling are perhaps a little dull, and that of the redpoll less often seen, but the beautiful male bullfinch would win any red breast competition hands down (or maybe primary feathers down).  Perhaps another reason for the robin’s association with Christmas is that they start their breeding season much earlier, and last year there was a news item about a robin nesting in a Christmas wreath on a front door.  The owners were happy to use the back door until the chicks fledged.

And finally some Christmas card candidates from Australia.

Eastern Yellow Robin 

Scarlet Rosella - they don't come redder than that!