While there are reports of a shortage of robins this autumn following the very dry summer, this is not true locally: we have plenty of them, all busting their guts to establish territories which will get them through the winter fit enough for the rigours of next spring's mating season.
Our first robin is the garden robin. He's under the greatest pressure of all as our garden offers a feast of different foods but attracts all sorts of rivals - see earlier post here.
Not far away, just in the pinewood plantation, there's our second robin, the woodland robin. A chunk of monotonous pine wood isn't a great territory but he has the advantage of being fairly close to some houses which I know feed the birds.
This is our third robin, the field robin. He lives in a lone willow tree along the farm track above our house, a place of limited resources - where he has recently been traumatised by a huge machine which....
....came along the road with a great arm extended upon which there was a grinding, cutting machine which mashed up half his tree and a considerable length of vegetation along the track. His was a poor territory to start with, so it wasn't surprising that we found him unwilling to leave the remains of his precious tree, preferring to bury himself in it while....
....emitting a plaintive 'weep.... weep.... weep'.
Poor soul - but at least he's very unlikely to have any serious contenders for his territory.
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