Archive for robin

A Bird in the House

Posted in Biographical, Maynooth with tags , , on April 5, 2022 by telescoper

I’m told that in some cultures it is believed that a bird flying into your house is a sign of impending death. I hope that isn’t true because I’ve been having regular avian visitations recently.

It started last week when, after a spell of lovely sunny days, the weather suddenly took a turn for the worse. One day I went outside to put some rubbish in the bin. I left the patio doors from the kitchen/diner to the garden open for just a few minutes and closed them when I got back in. It was a few minutes later that I heard a flapping sound and looked up to see a robin trying to get out through one of the windows by my kitchen sink. It must have sneaked in while I was preoccupied, presumably because it was a lot warmer inside than out. It must have had the house under surveillance to have managed to get in during such a narrow window of opportunity.

I was a bit worried for the robin’s safety as I have seen birds get into a panic when they find themselves indoors and I thought it might do itself an injury. It was a regular event at my junior school years ago for a sparrow to get in and fly around in a panic before teacher managed to open a window and shoo it out. More recently I remember a pigeon somehow contrived to fall down the chimney in my house in Nottingham, emerging flapping and fluttering and scattering soot everywhere. It was very difficult to get that one to leave as it was completely disoriented. My cat nearly caught it a couple of times before it finally escaped.

Anyway, the robin situation wasn’t anything like that. Although I thought my reappearance in the kitchen might spook it, it seemed to recognize me as the human person who provides food. It just hopped onto the top of the open door leading from the kitchen to the hall and stared at me. I went slowly back to the patio doors, opened them both and stood aside. After sizing up the necessary flight path, the robin made a perfectly orderly exit. Robins seem harder to frighten than some other birds.

Since then the robin has been a regular visitor to the house, entering whenever the doors are open and leaving when it has had enough. It’s been inside more-or-less every day for a week (but not today).Once it helped itself to some leftovers in a pan on the hob but most visits have just taken the form of a general inspection: poking around in the shelves, checking out the furniture, and so on. I should try to take a photograph of it, but I’ve never yet had a camera to hand during a visit. I suppose the robin is now quite comfortable coming into my house and may become a regular guest. I don’t mind, although I hope it minimizes the amount of guano it deposits.

5 Comments »

For the Birds..

Posted in Biographical, Maynooth with tags , , , on January 17, 2021 by telescoper

The Giant Robin of Newgrange

I saw the above picture of a robin on Twitter the other day and it reminded me of the one that visits my garden. I’ve never been quick enough to take a picture of him, but he’s every bit as plump as the one in the picture. If he were taller he’d be spherical.

The robin situation in my garden has seen an important development: another robin has arrived. The new one is smaller than the first and the first time I saw it I only noticed it because it was having a squabble with the plump one. I assumed it was a younger rival, but on subsequent days I saw the two of them together quite peacefully. Since male and female robins are virtually indistinguishable I wonder if they might be a husband and wife team? The fact that I saw them having a row lends support to this theory.

Another interesting thing concerned niger seed. I bought some of this a while ago, together with a feeder that purported to be designed for dispensing it. Niger seed is a fine oily seed very good for the smaller birds. Unfortunately the mesh in the feeder is too coarse and the seed just poured out as I filled it. I put the bag of seed away and filled the feeder with other stuff. Last week I remembered the bag of niger seed and decided to try putting some loose in the bird table. In no time a group of four chaffinches were tucking in. These were definitely two males and two females – the females are notably different in colour. Anyway, they love it – as do a number of other birds, including the robin(s) – and I’ve had to replenish the supply twice.

I usually wait until there don’t seem to be any birds present before going out to check the food supply, but this is a waste of time. Even if the garden appears empty, as soon as I go out there’s a whooshing sound and lots of chirps as birds that had secreted themselves in various trees and hedges take to the air to escape the scary human.

The birds provide a welcome distraction when I take a break from exam marking, as does writing a blog, but I guess I should get back to it now.

1 Comment »

Garden Variety

Posted in Biographical, Maynooth with tags , , , on October 10, 2020 by telescoper

The modest investment I made in bird feeders when I moved into my new house in Maynooth has paid a considerable dividend in terms of entertainment. As well as a number of starlings and sparrows, I have quite a variety of more exotic species. The other morning, while I was drinking my coffee while looking into the garden before leaving for work, I saw a robin, a great tit, a blue tit, a chaffinch, and (I think) a hedge warbler*. And that was all just in the space of 10 minutes or so.

The show was then brought to a sudden end by the arrival of two jackdaws who scared everything else off and then tried to wreck the nut feeder.

I went outside and chased them away. I have nothing against the jackdaws – they’re actually rather amusing – but I won’t have vandalism in my garden.

The hedge warbler (or dunnock or hedge sparrow, although it’s not a sparrow) is not particularly rare in Ireland but is extremely shy and never gives you a long time to look at it. I’m pretty sure the bird I saw was one, though it was gone in a flash.

The local robin, by contrast, is not shy. I see him very frequently. I think it’s male because of the very bright red of his chest colour; females of the species tend to have colours that look slightly washed out. Male or female this one is very well nourished. In fact it’s so plump as to be almost spherical.

Anyway, all these birds (including the jackdaws) are passerine species, defined by the shape of their feet: they all have three toes pointing forward and one pointing backwards. The order Passeriformes includes perching birds of all kinds, from sparrows and finches to crows and a lot more besides. In fact over half the known bird species belong to this order.

9 Comments »