Robin

Our spade-perching, unofficial national bird, the Robin, is a resident breeder and Winter visitor from Africa.

Species introduction

At a glance
Latin name: 
Erithacus rubecula
Family: 
Thrushes and Chats
Family Latin name: 
TURDIDAE
Category: 
Birds

Species description

Species description

Our spade-perching, unofficial national bird is a resident breeder and Winter visitor from Africa.  It had a stable population of 7.4 million birds in 2016, so its conservation status is GREEN.  It is strongly territorial, and when vying for a mate the males will sometimes attack anything that shows a red colour, as of a rival male.  Film exists of a woman wearing a red hat, and a red Post Office van, being aggressively attacked.

With a breast the colour of blood it is unsurprising that the robin in folklore is a harbinger of death, who will tap thrice on the window of the bedroom of a dying person.  The bodies of the lost babes in the wood were covered with leaves by robins.  Nevertheless, it is very unlucky to harm a robin, or to take its eggs or disturb its nest in any way.  In some folktales the robin is associated with the discovery or bringing of fire, presumably on the basis of its red breast.

Species photographs

Larger photograph(s) (click to magnify)
Robins are strongly territorial, and when vieing for a mate the males will sometimes attack anything that shows a red colour.
Our spade-perching, unofficial national bird, the Robin, is a resident breeder and Winter visitor from Africa.
A Robin about to be released, having been ringed in Heene Cemetery
This juvenile Robin is about to be released, having been ringed in Heene Cemetery in late September 2021.
Our spade-perching, unofficial national bird, the Robin, is a resident breeder and Winter visitor from Africa.

Details

Species family information

Thrushes are predominantly unspecialised, omnivorous, ground foragers. Many are brown, the colour of turds, hence the family name. Most are monogamous, some being highly gregarious in the non-breeding season like our Winter thrushes, the Redwings and Fieldfares. Thrushes are melodious singers, and among the earliest contributors to the dawn chorus.

Category information

The earliest feathered dinosaur fossils date from the early Cretaceous, but the ancestry of birds goes further back to Jurassic theropod dinosaurs, which shared a common ancestor with the crocodilians. Well known theropod groups include the tyrannosaurs, allosaurs, and other carnivores. Of surviving bird groups, the most ancient are the ratites (ostriches, rheas, tinamous, moas, kiwis, cassowaries, and emus), followed in evolutionary order by the waterfowl (ducks, geese and swans) and then the land fowl (chickens, turkeys, pheasants and their kin). Heene cemetery’s most ancient bird visitors are the woodpigeons. Strictly, therefore, we ought to refer to birds as dinosaurs, for they are direct descendants. The RSPB would be more accurately restyled as the RSPD. Where known, the conservation status of each bird is given as red, amber, or green, according to its survival potential based on 2016 populations and recent population trends.

Birds are warm-blooded, and have feathers, toothless, beaked jaws, and a strong, lightweight skeleton. They lay hard-shelled eggs. Their hearts have four chambers, and their metabolic rate is high. Although most are adapted for flight, many can also run, jump, swim and dive. Flightless birds retain vestigial wings. Brown, green, and grey are the commonest bird colours, for camouflage.