Moss - The robin: a biography

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Text copyright Stephen Moss 2017

Cover images Mary Evans Picture Library

Stephen Moss has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this Work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

First published by Square Peg in 2017

penguin.co.uk/vintage

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

To Sally Rose, my aunt, and June Dolan, my mother-in-law, who love their garden robins

I have heard of a closet naturalist who, slighting the labours of a brother in the field, alleged that he could pen a volume on the robin; but surely, if confined to the subject and without the aid of fable, it would prove a duller book than Robinson Crusoe.

William MacGillivray

Art thou the bird whom Man loves best,

The pious bird with the scarlet breast,

Our little English Robin

William Wordsworth, The Redbreast Chasing the Butterfly, 1806

Robin on a leafless bough,

Lord in Heaven, how he sings!

Now cold winters cruel wind

Makes playmates of withered things

W.H. Davies, Robin Redbreast, 1908

There is a little bird rather celebrated for its affection to mankind than its singing, which, however, in our climate has the sweetest note of all others The note of other birds is louder, and their inflexions more capricious, but this birds voice is soft, tender and well supported, and the more to be valued as we enjoy it the greatest part of the winter.

Oliver Goldsmith, from A History of the Earth: and Animated Nature, 1774

It is the first mild day of March:

Each minute sweeter than before.

The redbreast sings from the tall larch

That stands beside our door.

There is a blessing in the air,

Which seems a sense of joy to yield

To the bare trees, and mountains bare,

And grass in the green field.

William Wordsworth, To My Sister, 1798

The nest is hid close at its mossy root

Composed of moss and grass and lined with hair

And five brun-coloured eggs snug sheltered there

And bye and bye a happy brood will be

The tennants of this woodland privacy.

John Clare, The Robins Nest, 1835

No bird is earlier awake than the redbreast; it begins the music of the woods, welcomes the dawn of day. It also protracts its warble to the latest hour, and is seen fluttering about in the evening.

Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux, 17711786

What little birds, with frequent shrillest chirp

When honeysuckle flowers succeed the rose,

The inmost thicket haunt? Their tawny breasts,

Spotted with black, bespeak the youngling thrush,

Though less in size; it is the redbreasts brood,

New-flown, helpless, with still the downy tufts

Upon their heads.

James Grahame, The Birds of Scotland, 1806

Stay, little foolish, fluttring thing,

Whither, ah! Whither would you wing

Your airy flight? Stay here and sing,

The mistress to delight.

No, no sweet Robin, you shall not go;

Where, you wanton, could you be

Half so happy as with me?

Sweet Robin, Anonymous, 1828

The robin redbreast and the wren

Are God Almightys cock and hen;

The martin and the swallow

Are God Almightys birds to hallow.

Nineteenth-century folk rhyme

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?

Think not of them, thou hast thy music too

While barrd clouds bloom the soft-dying day,

And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue:

Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn

Among the river sallows, borne aloft

Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;

And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;

Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft

The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;

And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

John Keats, from To Autumn, written 19 September 1819

Sweet little bird in russet coat

The livery of the closing year

I love thy lonely plaintive note

& tiney whispering song to hear

While on the stile or garden seat

I sit to watch the falling leaves

The songs thy little joys repeat

My lonliness relieves

& many are the lonely minds

That hear & welcome thee anew

John Clare, The Autumn Robin, 1835

And when the short days

Begin to be cold

Robin redbreast will come home to thee

And be very bold.

Robert Crowley, Of Flatterers, 1550

The North Wind doth blow

And we shall have Snow

And what will poor Robin do then, poor thing?

Anonymous, sixteenth century

As I write these words, a little bird comes to the open door of my back-garden office. Hopping towards me, he cocks his head to one side as if checking me out. Then he flies up into a nearby elder and, moments later, begins to pour out his delicate, tuneful song, full of nuance and pathos. On this late-autumn afternoon, when all is quiet in the natural world, this sight and sound fills me with an unexpected rush of joy and delight.