Robins

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I’m going to run a Christmas card count this year — which animal will feature most often in these seasonal greetings? Robin ought to be odds-on favourite, surely. I’ve just had a pathetically cursory internet-based research session, as to why this little bird should be so associated with Christmas, but I won’t bore you with the multitude of spurious and daft reasons spouted. I don’t believe any of them. Easy and cheery spot-colour in early stationery printing is my best guess.

It’s enough to know that robins are bright, distinctive, friendly (or fearless), and the image of one perched on the wooden handle of the garden spade is about as kitsch as they come.

For some strange reason, I don’t see robins in my garden very often. There’s always one about up at the allotment, though, and a few days ago one pursued me doggedly around Nunhead Cemetery. They must be about in East Dulwich. Maybe my garden sits on the boundary of two territories, and is avoided by robins unless they are in especially pugnacious mood.

I’m not overly sentimental when it comes to birds, if I ever have the strength I’ll relate the lost duckling and the hungry herring gull anecdote some time, but I have one soft spot for robins. Way back in the last century (late 1970s) I organized a Sussex University Natural History Society dawn chorus walk, and roped in a local ornithologist. Rendezvousing in Stanmer Park on the outskirts of Brighton, we set off in the May gloom at 4-something in the morning. The first bird of the day, and still about the only song I can recognise, was a lone robin. Lovely.

Now back to those cards. Nope, robin is still a long way behind. Penguins, it seems, are winning by several lengths. I blame Happy Feet.

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