A bird of the season

The festive season is upon us... Come December people in most parts of the world are naturally caught up in the spirit of the season that is blowing everywhere; its holiday time with Christmas and New Year celebrations just round the corner. Who can really resist the festive atmosphere that greets you from every nook and corner? The nip in the air, the gaily decorated street corners and shops,the coloured jets, Chrsitmas trees and tinsel, and of course the aroma of all the yummy sweetmeats prepared during this time all put us in a the mood and set the tempo for joyous celebrations.

Yes, Christmas comes but once a year and it will soon be time to have fun and frolic with the numerous activities associated with the season ...

On a count down to Christmas Day , which is of great spiritual significance to the Christians and Catholics around the world, today we decided to shift our focus from the usual Christmas trivia on to a topic that rarely gets attention - a feathered beauty associated with the season.

There are many from the animal kingdom which come into the limelight during the Christmas season apart from Rudolf , the famous red-nosed reindeer, and the robin is just one of them .

Even though we hardly pay much attention to this tiny little red- breasted bird during the festive season it is there in a large way. Everywhere we look there are images of this tiny bird ; on cards, wrapping paper, atop the delicious Christmas yule logs, puddings and cakes and on ,Christmas trees too.Come to think of it, it is hard to imagine a Christmas without robins.They have taken a starring role on many Christmas cards since the mid 19th century.The robin has also appeared on many Christmas postage stamps.

How did this tiny bird end up getting such a prominent place during the Christmas season is interesting.There are many who believe it is because of its red breast. They claim that when early Christmas cards were produced in the mid-18th Century, they were delivered by postmen wearing bright red coats. These postmen became known as ‘robins’ or ‘redbreasts’, and so the bird on the Christmas card was representing the postman who delivered it.’ Then there are others who say it is because of the famous legend that the robin got its redbreast. Legend has it that when Jesus was dying on the cross, the Robin, then simply brown in colour, flew to his side and sang into his ear in order to comfort him in his pain. The blood from his wounds stained the robin’s breast, and thereafter all Robins got the mark of Christ’s blood upon them.

There are yet others who say it is because when all the other birds flew away to avoid the winter season the robin is the only bird which hung around to celebrate Christmas.So, it has naturally became prominent during the season.Today , it has become strongly associated with Christmas.

Whatever the reasons may be the robin is a bird of the festive season so let’s investigate into its lifestyle and habitat.

There are two main groups of robins ;the European robin (Erithacus rubecula )and the American robin(Turdus migratorius) .The term robin is also applied to some birds in other families with red or orange breasts. These include the Australian red robins of the genus Petroica.

The robin belongs to a group of mainly insectivorous birds that have been variously assigned to the thrushes or “flycatchers”, depending on how these groups were perceived taxonomically. Some South and Middle American Turdus thrushes are also named as robins such as the Rufous-collared Robin. The Australian “robin redbreast”, more correctly the Scarlet Robin (Petroica multicolor), is more closely related to the crows and jays than it is to the European Robin. It belongs to the family Petroicidae, commonly called “Australasian robins”. Yet another group of Old World Flycatchers, this time from Africa and Asia is the genus Copsychus; its members are known as Magpie-robins, one of which, the Oriental Magpie Robin (C. saularis), is the national bird of Bangladesh.

The European Robin , is a small insectivorous passerine bird that was formerly classed as a member of the thrush family (Turdidae), but is now considered to be an Old World flycatcher (Muscicapidae).

Around 12.5-’’14.0 cm (5.0-’’5.5 in) in length, the male and female are similar in coloration, with an orange breast and face lined with grey, brown upperparts and a whitish belly. It is found across Europe, east to Western Siberia and south to North Africa; it is sedentary in most of its range except the far north. The distinctive orange breast of both sexes contributed to the European Robin’s original name of redbreast (orange as the name of a colour was unknown in English until the sixteenth century, by which time the fruit of that name had been introduced). In the fifteenth century, when it became popular to give human names to familiar species, the bird came to be known as robin redbreast, which was eventually shortened to robin.

The male and female bear similar plumage; an orange breast and face, lined by a bluish grey on the sides of the neck and chest. The upperparts are brownish, or olive-tinged in British birds, and the belly whitish, while the legs and feet are brown. The bill and eyes are black. Juveniles are a spotted brown and white in coloration, with patches of orange gradually appearing.

The robin has a fluting, warbling song in the breeding season, when they often sing into the evening, and sometimes into the night, leading some to confuse them with the Nightingale. Both the male and female sing during the winter, when they hold separate territories, the song then sounding more plaintive than the summer version.The female robin moves a short distance from the summer nesting territory to a nearby area that is more suitable for winter feeding.

The male robin keeps the same territory throughout the year.It is diurnal, although has been reported to be active hunting insects on moonlit nights or near artificial light at night.

The nest is composed of moss, leaves and grass, with finer grass, hair and feathers for lining. Two or three clutches of five or six eggs are laid throughout the breeding season, which commences in March in Britain and Ireland. The eggs are a cream, buff or white speckled or blotched with reddish-brown colour, often more heavily so at the larger end.When juvenile birds fly from the nests they are mottled brown in colour all over. After two to three months out of the nest, the juvenile bird grows some orange feathers under its chin and over a similar period this patch gradually extends to complete the adult appearance.

The American Robin or North American Robin is a migratory songbird . Even though it is named after the European Robin because of its reddish-orange breast, the two species are not related: The European robin belongs to the flycatcher family while the American robin belongs to the thrush family.

It is widely distributed throughout North America, wintering south of Canada from Florida to central Mexico and along the Pacific Coast. It has seven subspecies, but only T. m. confinis in the southwest is particularly distinctive, with pale gray-brown underparts.

The American Robin is active mostly during the day and assembles in large flocks at night. Its diet consists of invertebrates such as beetle grubs and caterpillars, fruits and berries.

The robin has a brown back and a reddish-orange breast, varying from a rich red maroon to peachy orange.The bill is mainly yellow with a variably dark tip, the dusky area becoming more extensive in winter, and the legs and feet are brown.The sexes are similar, but the female tends to be duller than the male, with a brown tint to the head, brown upperparts and less bright underparts.

However, the gender of some birds cannot be told on plumage alone. The juvenile is paler in colour than the adult male and has dark spots on its breast and whitish wing coverts.

First-year birds are not easily distinguishable from adults, but they tend to be duller, and a small percentage retains a few juvenile wing coverts or other feathers.

The American Robin’s diet generally consists of around 40 per cent invertebrates, such as beetle grubs, caterpillars and grasshoppers, and 60 per cent wild and cultivated fruits and berries.

Juvenile Robins and eggs are preyed upon by squirrels, snakes, and some birds, such as Blue Jays, Common Grackles, American Crows and Common Ravens. Adults are primarily taken by hawks, cats and larger snakes, although when feeding in flocks, the American Robin is able to remain vigilant and watch other flock members for reactions to predators.

The American Robin is one of the first North American bird species to lay eggs, and normally has two to three broods per breeding season, which lasts from April to July.

The nest which is built by the female with no assistance from the male partner is most commonly located 1.5 -’’4.5 metres (5 -’’15 ft) above the ground in a fork between two tree branches or in a dense bush. A new nest is built for each brood.

A clutch which comprises three to five light blue eggs, is incubated only by the female. After 14 days,the eggs hatch.The chicks are naked and have their eyes closed for the first few days after hatching. Worms, insects, and berries are fed to the chicks It is only after a further two weeks that the chicks leave the nest. All chicks in the brood leave the nest within two days of each other.

While the chicks are still young, the mother broods them continuously. When they are older, the mother will brood them only at night or during bad weather. Even after leaving the nest, the juveniles will follow their parents around and beg food from them. Juveniles become capable of sustained flight two weeks after fledging.The fledglings are able to fly short distances after leaving the nest. The wings of juvenile birds develop rapidly, and it only takes a couple of weeks for them to become proficient at flying. Until the young chicks learn to forage on their own,both parents actively protect and feed the fledged chicks.If a predator such as a domestic cat, og even a human is spotted near the young.birds,would give alarm calls and dive-bomb predators . The cryptically coloured young birds perch in bushes or trees for protection from predators. Bird banders have found that only 25per cent of young robins survive the first year.The male American Robin, as with many thrushes, has a complex and almost continuous song. Its song is commonly described as a cheerily carol.

The American Robin is often among the first songbirds singing as dawn rises or hours before, and the last as evening sets in.

[Fact file]

* The American robin is the state bird of Connecticut, Michigan and Wisconsin.
* Robin’s egg blue is a colour named after the bird’s eggs.
* The American Robin has a place in Native American mythology.
* The longest known lifespan in the wild of an American Robin is 14 years; the average lifespan is about two years.
* There are about 65 species of medium to large thrushes in the genus Turdus, characterised by rounded heads, longish pointed wings, and usually melodious songs
* The American Robin has an extensive range, estimated at 16 million square kilometres (6 million square miles), and a large population of about 320 million individuals.
*In American literature of the late 19th century, the European robin was frequently called the English Robin.

The robin features prominently in British folklore, and that of northwestern France, but much less so in other parts of Europe

Facts and pix: Internet