European Robin

The European robin is a bird of contradiction: dainty and confiding around gardeners’ spades, yet fiercely territorial, singing a thin silver song through the darkest winter months. Its orange-red breast is a warning badge, flashed at rivals rather than a gift to observers.

Robins follow larger animals, wild boar or a digging fox, to snap up the invertebrates they disturb — a habit that carried them naturally to the garden spade. In Britain the robin is so loved it has been voted the country’s unofficial national bird.