The First Ladybird Book of British Birds #3 – The Robin

I’m leafing through this 1950s Ladybird book when I come across the page for the Robin:

Everyone knows the Robin Redbreast

At least that’s what it says. The breast isn’t actually red though, is it? It’s as orange as anything I’ve ever seen, apart from an orange.

Here’s the entry from my 1970s nature notebooks:

I appear to have been seduced by the idea that the breast was red but rebelled slightly by labelling it ‘orange/red breast’.

Here’s my full post with the notes that I made and my modern digital photographs:

Robins – forty years ago in my nature notebooks

This is my favourite Robin photograph:

And here’s a gallery of some more portraits:

They eat a lot of worms and small snails, and are very good friends to gardeners.

Robins probably evolved to follow Wild Boar, eating invertebrates disturbed by their tusks and snouts in the ground. Since we killed the Wild Boar that live in Britain they now have to follow gardeners instead.

One thing that has changed for the better; we no longer encourage children to hunt for birds’ nests.