At this time of the year, I seem to spend most of my time in the garden, sweeping leaves! The last few times I have been working out there, I have had feathered companion in the form of a beautiful robin. This individual has not only followed me around, but has come extremely close on several occasions and has been very confiding. I have many robins in the garden and occasionally, you get an individual that is particularly interested in you.
This individual appears as soon as I go outside and today, as I was sweeping the path to the front door, it kept alighting on the railings only about 50 cm away from me. I took some suet pellets and crushed them, sprinkling them onto my mail box. It was only a few seconds before it came down, only cm away from me. This was filmed on my phone!
As I worked up in the garden he (or she) followed me around, often sitting in the hedge and singing a very quiet song right next to me. As I moved up the garden, so would he. He was so close, I was able to film this lovely song….
It is thought that this quiet ‘throat song’ is actually practising for the song the males will sing in the Spring to establish territories, but apparently, both females and males sing like this. It is impossible to tell male from female from appearance, but I am going to refer to ‘Bobbin’ as a male unless he proves to me otherwise!
It is a very special moment when a wild animal of any kind chooses to trust you enough to come so close…..
I used to have a robin that fed out of my hand, many years ago. Holding my hand out for several minutes, with crushed fat pellets, this robin got as close as hovering above my hand. A few weeks of tempting him and I’m sure I could get him to feed out of my hand!
Let’s hope over the winter, I can build up his trust and get him to come that little bit closer!