Robins

[watervole]

 I'm up to my neck in work for Wimborne Minster Folk Festival, but the good news is that we've now completed our concert line up and have early bird season tickets for sale.

However, I feel in need of distraction and I'd like to chat to my friends here, so I offer you a discourse on the subject of robins. (who are, of course, early birds)

It is a tradition in our family that there is actually only one robin.  The proof for this is simple.  If you are working in your garden, you will only ever see one robin.  If you go for a walk, you will only ever see one robin at a time.  Clearly, the same robin is moving along with you and simply pretending to be a series of different birds.

There is no gender difference in robins (even experts say it's hard to tell), because they are all in fact a single (hemaphrodite?) bird.  However, birds, as far as I know, don't indulge in parthenogenesis, therefore it is necessary to invoke time travel to explain how the robin manages to produce eggs.  The robin loops back in time, has sex with himself and eventually hatches out of his own egg.  One of the adults dies and the chick continues.

In our garden at present, there is a time-looping robin.  One incarnation lives in the hedge and one in the mulberry tree.  The demarcation line appears to centre on the bird feeder...  


You'll all be familiar with robins on Christmas cards, the classic image to this day is the robin perched on top of a red letter box (I counted four of this type of design in a single shop this Christmas).



But why is this kind of image so common?  



Back in Victorian times, postmen wore red livery and were nicknamed 'robins' as a result.  Victorian christmas cards often showed a robin with a christmas card in his beak.

Although the uniform has long since changed, we still associate robins with Christmas and friendly things.

This may also help explain why British robins are confident birds and happy to come near you when you're working in the garden whereas European robins are far more secretive.  Our minds associate robins with good things and we chat to them and make them feel welcome.  They have come to know they are safe, and continue to happily search for garden pests in our company.

Comments

[ranunculus]

Western Robins are quite a different bird indeed. First off they have rusty orange brests, they are quite large with brown backs. We often see them in groups of several birds apparently loosely associated. They are a bit aloof in demenor, but are happy to hop around the garden looking for worms, and equally happy to strip the pyrocantha of berries. I like seeing robins, they arrive in November and stay till around February. Wiki says they are here year round, but we almost never see on in the summer, whereas right now we see big groups.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Robin

[ranunculus]

Oh, and I didn't know that about the postman's coat connection!

[eledonecirrhosa.livejournal.com]

The idea of a time-travelling, hermaphrodite robin is fantastic! Presumably it can also teleport, to explain how it gets from your garden to my car park in a different city.

A short video history of robin studies is here, (http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/life/European_Robin#p00fndy9)including a psycho robin attacking a stuffed bird - towards the end.

[watervole.livejournal.com]

I'm glad to see you approaching this with the correct scientific spirit. Teleportation seems very likely. If we both attempt to view him at the same time, then some kind of quantum effect may need to be in operation.

Great links.

[reapermum.livejournal.com]

But if it has time travel, does it also need teleportation? You and I might think it's in our gardens at the same time, but to the robin they're different points on its time line.

[watervole.livejournal.com]

Fair point, it may be endlessly looping through time. I feel this is probably linked in some way to the mating issue.

[linda-joyce.livejournal.com]

Now I have always thought that the Robin is actually a transdimensinal creature who pushes sensory projections of itself through the dimensional barrier where ever it senses a friendly human to study us.

[watervole.livejournal.com]

Ah, so it would still be a single robin?

[linda-joyce.livejournal.com]

Oh yes but I applied Occam's razor and managed to circumvent the need to time travel. The Robin is hermaphrodite and produces a full grown 'child' just before it dies.

[eledonecirrhosa.livejournal.com]

Perhaps the Robin is not hermaphrodite at all, but is the source of the legendary Phoenix. Every year it hides in a Bonfire Night bonfire, alongside some unfortunate hedgehogs, then rises reborn from the ashes the next morning.

[linda-joyce.livejournal.com]

That is a distinct possibility, sexing The Robin has never really been tried

[vjezkova.livejournal.com]

How delightful! So clever, and reading that I thought of Schrodinger´s Robin...originally Cat. Well, I like it!:-)

[sweetheartwhale.livejournal.com]

If there's only one robin what has Cleo eaten the last two septembers? She didn't get it in 2012/3 thank God because it cleverly didn't appear till last week. Its also thin

[sweetheartwhale.livejournal.com]

2012/13 I mean, not 2012/2003 that's more time travel. Don't let her see this or she'll go back in time to chase the one robin.She's a Schrodinger herself anyway - the most commonly asked question in our house is "where's Cleo?". If you opened the box you'd find her looking over your shoulder for herself.

On the subject of birds I think saw and heard a lesser spotted woodpecker today - quite common here in Yorkshire. she ( definitely a she) was tapping on lower branches and woke me up at 8 then was at it again when Cleo and I were sat down the garden in -3.

[watervole.livejournal.com]

If you have a bird feeder in a safe place, try putting out some suet.

Thin robin

[sweetheartwhale.livejournal.com]

My neighbours put suet out but I cant with 4 cats prowling around. The bird's best bet is to eat sensibly - Cleo likes to catch spherical birdies and recently brought in the fattest house mouse I ever saw( fat prey = best result for energy expended) I'll keep my eye on the robin for its sake .... I fed it some crusts yesterday while Cleo was asleep.;-)

[alex-holden.livejournal.com]

There appears to be some kind of Heinlein-style time paradox going on here: I can see him in four different parts of the garden at once.

[watervole.livejournal.com]

Four! I thing we need to invoke an extra dimension - or, if this is a Heinlein tale, perhaps they are visiting from one of the many parallel universes.

Thin Robin update

[sweetheartwhale.livejournal.com]

Spotted him the day before yesterday,on my neighbour's birdtable,looking about 30% fatter than before.He stopped briefly in the lower branches of my elderberry tree and sang. Cleo's still ignoring him as potential prey though,she was a few feet away on my lap and just raised her head, listened and closed her eyes at him - hopefully robins are out of season as far as she's concerned.He stays off the ground,anyway, which is a good survival tactic. I included him in my Winter birdwatch form in the Radio Times.