ROBIN: friendly garden bird is a violent foe

OF all our native garden birds, it is undoubtedly the robin that takes the prize for popularity at Christmas.

Go into any card shop in the country at this time and the robin's red breast will be blazing forth from a variety of cards, often with a snow or holly-decked background to maximise the effect.

For such a pretty little bird, it comes as a surprise to some that the robin can actually be a violent thug in defence of its territory.

Male robins, despite being just 14cms long, will battle ferociously to cling onto an area they regard as theirs.

Such fights sometimes end in death, the result of a savage pecking from that tiny beak.

Even a piece of red or orange cloth can become a target for a robin maddened by its territorial instincts during the nesting season.

Robins have been associated with Christmas since the middle of the 19th century when the idea of sending greeting cards first took off.

At the time, postmen were nicknamed 'robins' because they wore bright red work jackets.

Thus, the link was made between this distinctive bird and the idea of it bringing glad tidings during the festive season.

Our own native robins are supplemented each year by an influx of robins from abroad.

These are slightly paler in colour and some say they are also quieter and shyer than native robins.

There is probably some truth in this because huntsmen on the Continent have no compunction about killing small birds for the pot, though the amount of meat on a robin is negligible and it would take several to make a feast.

It must therefore have been a native robin that I encountered earlier this year cheekily hopping along a fence at my elbow at a tourist watermill site in Somerset.

So bold was this particular bird that I was sure that if I stretched out my hand, it would hop aboard.

It didn't in the end. However, gardeners and others who slowly build up a rapport with robins are often rewarded in this way.

Despite their savagery with each other, 75 per cent of young robins never make it to adulthood and are picked off by a host of predators, the domestic cat being the most prolific killer.

Robins feed on a wide variety of insects, as well as worms, berries, and garden titbits.

Up to seven eggs are laid in the nesting season and these are typically white in colour with red spots.

Unlike many bird species, the male and female robin look the same so it's often difficult to tell which is which - until it comes to the mating season. During this period, it is the female robin that pursues the male until he decides he wants her after all.

Then he courts her by stuffing her with food.

As well as a sharp "tic-tic-tic" alarm call, the robin has a fine singing voice which it exercises throughout the year, sometimes even at night.

In past centuries, having such an attractive voice could have seen the robin captured and imprisoned in a cage, something which prompted 18th century poet William Blake to write:"A Robin Redbreast in a Cage, Puts all Heaven in a Rage."

Today, a robin in a cage would put PC Plod in a rage because it's illegal.