Allotments 4 All

I'm sitting here watching three of them around the feeders just now.

THREE !   :o  Must be my lucky day.  About time i got out in the sun and made the most of it.

;D

You are extremely lucky. It's really weird but we almost never see a robin in our garden. In other gardens I frequently see them being friendly as they are, but us, ZERO!

Hi Beejay.  We often have a couple pecking around now but they are very shy and never come anywhere near when we're out gardening - not like British robins who will come and sit on a fork handle and wait for grubs to be unearthed.   They also have a more orange breast I think.

my two regulars (i like to call them mr & mrs but i've no idea if they are mates or just pals  ;D) are the first two birds up in the morning and the last two to go to bed at night.

the other night it was almost dark and one of them was STILL outside the office window having it's tea.  i haven't had the pleasure of one really close up yet, but i'm hoping that once i spend more time in the garden, they'll get used to having me invade their space and come and say hi.

;D

We only ever get one robin into our garden. I have never seen three at one time.
Lucky you.
:)

i kept thinking that i had blurred vision (i had a bit of a heavy night last night) but sure enough there were three and this is in residential glasgow.

i felt privileged.

I have had 3 Robins on occasions but they are usually fighting.  Robins are very territorial and go mental if another 'robin' is on his patch.  I had 2 this morning but they were 25m apart in my garden, think the 3rd one was killed few weeks back by a M.V.  I picked up the corpse from the road.

Yes I am amazed! Our resident robin chases any other robins that dare to venture into the graden. Except when s/he's mating of course. ;)

my two have a bit of a rough and tumble with but are reasonably tolerant of each other which makes me think they're in lurve.  they'll feed within a couple of feet.

they soon saw off mr interloper though and took it in turns to chase him.

they're not so brave all the time though and have run from sparrows which i thought was quite amusing.  i thought they were supposed to be the toughies.

Pairs are possible this time of year, but three is odd. Normally, once they develop the red breast, ythe only other time you see two together is when they're fighting. My plot was on the boundary of two territories one year, and they frequently squabbled round the soft fruit.

i only have 1 & here he is

this was taken this morning & as you can see he's not camera shy :)

Lovely, lovely picture GW.   :D  :D  :D

I have just had a thought  ;) ;) ;) maybe that Robin I found was not killed by a vehicle but by another Robin, in other words he was murdered  :-[ :-[ :-[ .  He did have a mark on his neck, poor wee thing.

:'( :'(

I love robins. They nest every year in our garden. They're friendly with us humans and all they ask for is a bit of support for feeding their babies and they'll eat up every available grub in the garden and perch on my fork/spade to keep me company.

It would be most unusual for one robin to kill another if they aren't caged; what happens is that they squabble for a bit and one backs off. Fights to the death are very rare overall; the commonest is between honeybee queens; when two fight (and not all strains do this), then one is killed about 50% of the time. After that you get humans and, if I remember right, chimpanzees.

Quote from: Obbelix on February 09, 2006, 17:00:14
Hi Beejay.  We often have a couple pecking around now but they are very shy and never come anywhere near when we're out gardening - not like British robins who will come and sit on a fork handle and wait for grubs to be unearthed.   They also have a more orange breast I think.

Britain also takes in Robins from the continent over winter and they can be told apart from native Robins by being shier and having slightly less red breasts.

The only time I have ever seen three Robins together, at least two of them have been fighting.  A lucky sight  :)

Hi grawrc,
I see robins in the garden on a regular basis.
I fixed a 'bought' robin nest box facing East on the side of a shed at the end of the garden two years ago - checked today & it appears it has never been used.
Any advice?

I don't know Tel! We put out food. The box they nest in is about 6 feet from the kitchen window but they don't seem worried by passing traffic. The main thing I think is just the hours spent together in the garden quietly and fearlessly, where they case the joint for 10 minutes or so then sneak up when they think I'm not looking and finally take the plunge and perch on the fork so as not to miss anything. Our blackbirds are a bit like that too, especially Mr blackbird.

I love the photo GW  :)

MM

He's a beauty GW, lovely photo.  :D :D

Isn't it strange how robins vary from place to place?  Yours looks more rounded and has a much deeper orange breast than those in my garden.   :-\