This is the beginning of 2025’s seasonal cycle of Shriek of the Week. That means we’re back with our commonest resident British songbirds. As the months go by we’ll tune in to summer visitors too, timed with their reappearance.
If you’ve been subscribed for a while, I hope you find the repeating pattern and seasonal reminders useful. I update and improve the commentary year-on-year where I can, and will continue to drop in some as-yet-uncovered species into the mix from time to time.
Equally you may feel it’s all a little *too* familiar, and wish to take a break. No hard feelings!
Listening tip: As always, if you’re reading this as an email, you may find it a better experience to click on the big title of the post (above) and continue reading on the Substack website, or in the app if you have it. That means the audio snippets should play on the page while you scroll down, rather than sending you off somewhere else.
Thank you for reading and listening. I enjoy receiving comments, questions and feedback - you can leave a message on these posts (as above, if you’re reading this as an email, just click on the title of the post and visit the web version, where there’s a comments field at the end of the post). You can also email me at charlie@birdsong.academy.
Wishing you a peaceful start to 2025, and a robin outside your window.
~ Charlie
Even in the depths of winter, the robin sings, which may have gone a long way to securing its enduring popularity in Britain.
Our resident bird species tend to dial down their territorial energies during the colder months. Robins however keep winter territories, and both males and females sing to defend them.
The song is sharp and wistful-sounding. Philosophical perhaps.
The phrases tend to trail off, rather than ending definitively. It’s as though they are thinking aloud - not quite sure what will come out next; undecided whether they’re finished… If you read an essay by a robin there would be semi-colons.
The fact that female robins sing has not always been well known. You can’t tell the sex of a robin by looking at them (unless you are very up close and personal).
Until relatively recently the assumption lingered that, as for many other species where the sexes look alike, a singing bird will be male.
According to David Lack in his 1941 book The Life of the Robin, the suggestion that females may sing had been made as early as 1831, with Charles Darwin suggesting it was likely to be true in 1871. Proof finally came from a study in Northern Ireland in 1924 by a civil engineer called J. H. Burkitt, who caught robins and fitted their legs with coloured rings, so he could recognise distinct individuals as he observed their behaviour.
This and a similar field study by David Lack for his own work, revealed so much of what we now know about robins, in particular the crucial role of song in defending territory.
Robins are famously feisty and do physically attack rivals, sometimes injuring and killing each other. However, chasing, posturing - and a sustained vocal effort - are usually enough to settle a dispute.
To make things even more interesting, Lack found that nearby birds quietly ‘trespass’ in each other’s territories while foraging. He invites us to tell the difference between a bird doing this and one in its own patch:
Inside their territories the birds sing, fight, display, and make themselves conspicuous; outside them they do not sing or display, they retreat if attacked, keep as inconspicuous as possible, and, if disturbed, usually fly straight back to their own domains.
So song is a powerful clue to a robin’s circumstances, and their commitment to holding territories all year round is what gives us the gift of hearing their song even when so much else is quiet.
This persistence even extends beyond daylight. The robin’s habit of singing in the small hours, especially in the glow of an orange street lamp, adds another dimension to its familiarity.
How many early morning commutes and unsteady after-party walks have been soundtracked by a robin?
And a note on that other robin
For those on the other side of the Atlantic to here, the neighbourhood robin is a different beast.
American Robins (Turdus migratorius) are not closely related to the European ones (Erithacus rubecula) from which they take their name.
Though they share a similar colour on their chest, in shape, sound and habits they are very much a thrush, and remarkably like our European Blackbird.
To my ear the song sounds most upbeat and friendly. Perhaps your most positive friend giving you a motivational chat (while sat up a tree).
One of these handsome creatures turned up in a friend’s garden here in Sussex a couple of years ago. Hundreds of people came to see it, just the 33rd American Robin to have been recorded in Britain. (The one from Mary Poppins does not count.)
For Ann, who gave me The Life of the Robin.
Thanks for reading. This is the first instalment in 2025’s cycle of Shriek of the Week.
A warm welcome to new subscribers. There’s a Shriek of the Week every weekend, January to June. If you like what’s happening here, please pass this along.
For those in a position to do so, taking out a paid subscription supports me to write more and improve what I do. It also gets you full access to the archive, and an invite to the monthly Early Bird Club call, on the first Saturday of the month (8-9am UK time).
Next week: Wren
📚 Read of the week: The Serviceberry, by Robin Wall Kimmerer
Imagine a fruit that tastes like a Blueberry crossed with the satisfying heft of an Apple, a touch of rosewater and a minuscule crunch of almond-flavored seeds. They taste like nothing a grocery store has to offer: wild, complex with a chemistry that your body recognizes as the real food it’s been waiting for.
Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass was published quietly over ten years ago, but has picked up a passionate following, way beyond North America, from where its stories are drawn.
For many, its weaving of Indigenous knowing and science-based insights about the life of plants has profoundly affected how we may think about our role as humans in the world.
Her new short volume, The Serviceberry, focuses on themes touched by its predecessor: reciprocity, and the character of gifts. Among Kimmerer’s teachers are the waxwings and the robins (American variety) that feast on the berries alongside her as she gathers her share.
The original long essay on which the book is an expansion can be read for free here (thanks Jon A for the link) and the book itself is available to buy. What finer sustenance for the year ahead?
🐦⬛ More from Birdsong Academy
Join an early morning walk in London or Brighton this spring
Join the Early Bird Club, a Zoom call on the first Saturday in the month (with a paid subscription to Shriek of the Week)
Explore the A-Z archive
Credits:
European Robin photo by EvgeniT via Pixabay
American Robin image by Richard Wilson on Pixels.
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