Robins are one of the few birds that you will hear singing in winter because they are one of the very few British birds who sing all year round. In spring and summer they sing to defend their breeding territory and in winter they sing to defend their feeding territory. Robins don’t mate for life, going their separate ways in the autumn to set up and defend their own winter feeding territory and then set up a new breeding territory with a new partner each spring, which they defend together.

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Male and female robins both look and sound alike and, apart from a short period at the end of summer when  they undergo the summer moult, they both display the same plumage year round. At first juveniles are a dull brown with a mottled cream and brown breast until the end of their first summer when they develop the trademark red breast. 

Most robins stay put to see out the winter here, though a few adventurous females do join the migration of other European robins down to Southern Europe and North Africa, however as they go off to sun themselves abroad for the winter, some Scandinavian robins stop at our shores to see out the winter here. Winter sun is relative, it seems. Upon returning the females will head back to the same summer territory that they held the previous year.

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Our robin, the European robin and its subspecies, is widespread across Eurasia, native from Ireland in the west all the way across to far regions of Russia and from Northern Scandinavia all the way down to North Africa, including the Canary Islands. While it might be difficult to visually distinguish between the British born European robin and its Spanish, Swedish or French counterpart, behaviourally they are quite different. Most continental robins avoid humans if at all possible while the British population is a friendlier, more gregarious bunch, well known for setting up territories that include gardens and allotments. This is, though, simply modified behaviour, adapted from the original species behaviour of benefiting from the disturbed earth turned up by deer, wild boar and other ground foragers. This wariness of humans is most likely because across Europe and especially in the south small birds including robins have always and continue to be hunted for food and sport.

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Robins pair only for the breeding season, choosing a mate in mid winter and usually having their first brood around March, though in very mild winters they may lay their eggs as early as January. Robins are well known for building nests in all sorts of odd places, from coat pockets to flower pots to hats hanging on hat stands and just about anywhere in between.   If you are trying to tempt a breeding pair to set up home in your garden, offer them an open fronted nest box that is out of sight and reach of cats and predatory birds. They tend to favour sites that are low down, and well sheltered and they are quite intolerant of any disturbance during their nest building stage.

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They have two or three broods a year and sometimes as many as five. With this tight timetable, the male (who take on most of the feeding duties) is often still feeding the old brood while the female is sitting on the next clutch of 4 to 6 eggs. The female incubates these eggs for 13 days, the chicks are fully fledged at 2 weeks and they leave the nest after another couple of weeks.  During nest building, laying and incubation, female robins solicit food from their mates in a begging display remarkably similar to that exhibited by chicks begging for food. This is known as courtship feeding, although it is most often observed after courtship is over. Once all the chicks from the last brood of the year have left the nest the pair will part and head back to their old winter territory. The average age for a robin is only about one year though they can live for over 10 years. The first year is the trickiest.

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Robins are omnivorous, happily tucking into seeds and bird table scraps as well as enjoying their favourite food of worms, grubs and insects. Aggression is a word that is often linked to robins, especially males, though there is no reason to believe that they are any more aggressive in defending territories than any other bird. Perhaps it invites such critisism because it’s natural behaviour appears so out of character for such a cute and friendly bird. Their aggression is generally focused on other robins if they invade their territory, a behaviour which is by no means limited to this species!