The Song of Robin Redbreast (Erithacus rubecula)

When Nature provides you with just what you are looking for -
this is ’synchronicity’ in action. I was completing an
illustrated version of one of my ebooks ‘The Adventure of
Arthur’ and was short of some good pictures of a Robin – who is
a sort of ‘guide’ in this story – called ‘Follow the Robin’. I
had used a scanned Christmas card ‘at a pinch’ for this image
and – well it just sort of spoiled the ebook. With this in the
back of my mind I set off on a walk with my camera.

I went to a place downriver where there are no buildings, no
sound of cars, no people. It’s a place ‘out of time’ where you
can shift between centuries and just ‘be there’ at any time as
it has remained essentially unchanged for hundreds of years.
Ever since I went to view the Cornish solar eclipse of 2000
there it had become one of my ’special places’. The river Fowey
forks together just here and then starts to open out into St.
Winnow Pool and the valley bottom is secluded by mature mixed
woodland on every side.

After taking a couple of photos of ‘light sparkling on the
River’, I shut my eyes to take in the sounds – wind in trees,
distant sounds of farm animals, the subtle and playful noises of
water. After a few moments I heard a fluttering behind me – and
opened my eyes to see a Robin perched on top of my camera bag,
not even 18 inches away. It stared at me, head cocked, and flew
off to a nearby tree to pour out its fantastic song just above
my head. I saw another one, slightly smaller, hopping about
nearby, shyer than her mate.

I took the camera from the bag and hung it round my neck. The
tiny bird was just within zoom reach and I got a couple of shots
of it singing. ‘How lucky am I’? I thought. Just the pics I
need. After a few minutes the bird stopped its beautiful song,
and flew off to another tree nearby where it started ‘clucking’.
A sort of ‘tick tick’ noise like a fisherman’s reel. Robins make
this kind of noise sometimes too. I wished I had some seeds or
breadcrumbs to tempt it closer, but I had taken no food with me.
I clucked back to my best ability, matching its noises as best I
could without a Robin beak or larynx (do they have larynxes ? )

When it clucked once, I did. Then twice. Then three times,
altering the intervals between clucks like the bird. It hopped
nearer and nearer. Looking at me from various positions. And
then it flew over and actually stood on my knee. Very carefully
I lifted the camera and turned it on, hoping the little
electronic noises wouldn’t scare it. It stayed and I got a
wonderful close-up.

But then it started ‘posing’. You’re not going to believe this
but it moved its head around like a top model – giving me angles
from the left and right and front, staying right there on my
knee for what seemed like a few minutes. I know it sounds like
an ‘anthromorphic projection’ (where humans invest animals and
nature with their own ‘motivations’, which really annoys me
sometimes) – but that is really what it seemed like. It’s like
this Robin really wanted to be published – and now it is !

Even days later I feel so rewarded with this intimate connection
with a wild animal – and I just had to share it with you.

So I have to go back there with a gift for this friendly Robin
and his mate. I wondered what do Robins eat and stuff. What
would make a good gift for this friendly creature, perhaps the
best-loved of all birds with its sweet but slightly melancholy
song ?

I dug out ‘British Nesting Birds’, my 1910 edition by W.
Percival Westell (author of ‘Nature Stalking for Boys’). This
bird has loads of common names: Bobbie, Bob, Bobrobin,
Brow-Rhuddyn (Welsh), Robinet, Ruddock and Tommi-Liden amongst
them. WP Westell tells me they eat worms, earwigs, butterflies,
larvae, spiders, daddy-long-legs and will take scraps in Winter.
They make their nests from moss, dead leaves, stalks of plants
with a neat lining of roots, hair, or wool.

There’s my answer. Some soft, washed wool for the Robin to line
its nest for the coming brood – but not red !

Later on I returned.

I could hear the Robin some way off in the trees and couldn’t
seem to attract it by ‘clucking’. So I tried to contact the bird
with a technique I had read about where you push a picture into
an animal’s mind through its third eye. I sent it pictures of a
little nest with five eggs, all cosy with the newly cut bits of
woolly jumper I had brought with me.

Within a minute I heard the whir of wings and the Robin was
standing on the end of the bench where I sat. I slowly raised my
arm and dropped one of the wool pieces down near the bird. There
was no communication as such but I gained a strong impression I
was being scolded. Here follows a rough translation of what I
believe the bird replied:

“Take yer stupid peices of wool home with you, there the last
thing we need round here. The moss here is fantastic, it is
soft, there’s loads of it and has much better water draining
qualities than them soggy bits of cloth. If I use those the damp
will rot my chicks in the nest. Fat lot you know. If you really
want to make friends go and get me some fat juicy worms and
bring them here.”

I checked the moss. Because of the clean air here, there is
loads of moss and lichen for lining nests. It was certainly much
less likely to get damp than my wool. Suitably chastised I
returned home. I saw several Robins on the way home, they kind
of made themselves conspicuous by landing in a tree nearby and
starting to sing as I walked by – or was it the same Robin ?

But later, on a mornings gardening with my son, I persuaded him
to pick up some worms and save them for an expedition to see the
tame Robin that afternoon. The aim was to get the Robin to take
a worm from his hand, which in his words would be ‘cool’.

We sat there for about 45 minutes, making Robin clucking noises
but I could see his attention was wearing thin. He listened to
the bird song and we identified a pheasant, several other Robin
songs from over the river, the exciting cry of a hunting buzzard
and some other bird I couldn’t identify that makes a noise like
‘Michupichu – Michupichu’ ! We decided to ’set the worms free’
and headed into the copse behind us to find non-salty soil above
the highest tide mark and placed them down where they could
wriggle back into the earth.

It was then I saw the Robin, high up in one of the trees. Three
Robins. I sat down next to the worms and stage whispered to
Wills “Walk over here and sit down quietly”. But it was too
late. Quick as a flash of bright red the Robin swooped in and
bit off one end of one of the worms, fluttering back up to a
nearby tree. Wills sat down next to me and we picked up a worm
each and held it out. The Robin fluttered around from bush to
bush, keeping a beady eye on us at all times. Then it flew from
a bush, landed on my son’s head for a moment, and flew off to
another one.

It came closer as we stretched out our worms for the taking but
just then two large dogs ran through the copse, breaking the
moment. It was Mel with her daughters, Emily and Hazel, out
walking the dogs. Wills was glad to find some people his own age
to play with and we went back to Mel’s house for a cup of tea.

About the Author

SECRETS OF CREATIVITY by Simon Mitchell
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