There are few birds as fixed in the national psyche than the Robin in the United Kingdom. It is a ubiquitous species with 7.4 million pairs across the country. The folklore is rich surrounding Robins, and they are inextricably linked to Christmas, although this is more to do with the old uniform of the postman rather than the bird itself.
Robins have a long association with man. and especially the
gardener. Any gardener can tell you that whist digging the flower beds and
turning the soil that they will be quickly joined by a Robin who follows them about
feasting on the worms and insects revealed by the spade or fork. How Robins are
faring in the new era of no-dig is anyone’s guess. This particular behaviour is
a holdover from pre-agricultural times when Robins would follow wild boar herds,
feasting on the food disturbed as they rooted around the forest floor
This kind of behaviour is a form of mutualism, where two
species benefit from a relationship. The Robin gains access to invertebrates
the boars naturally expose as they root through the soil looking for roots and
tubers and the boars get an extra pair of eyes to watch out for predators.
Over the past few years, I have struck up a friendship with
a pair of robins. This year they paired up early in the season and have stuck
around ever since. Each time I sit outside one or both will fly down to sit on
the table beside me or perch in the nearby tree watching me attentively. Inevitably
I feed then, putting out a few pieces of suet. They soon established a nest
next door and each day I noticed how much more ragged their appearance became
as they struggled to feed both themselves and their young chicks. They still
came down for the suet but instead of gorging only on this they now hopped
about the lawn pulling out small worms or flitting around the patio furniture
catching spiders to feed their young. Suet is a high energy food very much
appreciated by many birds. The high fat content is especially welcome during
the winter, but in the breeding season it ensures that the adults have enough
energy to spend more time foraging for their offspring.
The pair, Bob and Roberta, as I coined them successfully raised three young that once they had fledged were brought to our garden, where upon I was able to watch the adults feed them in the undergrowth. These juvenile birds have now left, dispersed to new territories of their own and Bob and Roberta have started to squabble, a sure sign that autumn is approaching.
If I don’t put out some suet out, they will sit in plain site until I do so, very much in the same way our Cocker Spaniel would sit in front of the TV we were watching at 5pm each night to ensure we didn’t forget to get him his dinner. If I'm sitting in the conservatory they will come stand on the step or even an occasion entering the conservatory and perch on the seat beside me, their demeanour one of quiet impatience, almost as if they were stood cross armed one foot tapping, ‘come on human, you know what I want’.
Yesterday I was sat reading when the Robin came down once
more and in a pavlovian response I got up, got the suet pot and put some out on
the table. It struck me at that moment that there was more nuance to this
relationship than I thought. I loved this pair of Robins, I fed then, watched
them, cared for then. I worried when I didn't see them. I considered them my
friends but was that friendship reciprocated? The more I thought about it the
more I doubted it. I was demonstrating altruism to this Robin, I fed it out of
my own goodwill and whilst the Robin no doubt appreciated this easy meal
several times a day, would the Robin do the same? If I were hungry, would it
fly down and cook my tea, would it even offer one of its tiny worms to satiate
my need? I very much doubt it. Our friendship is one-sided and very much to the
benefit of the Robin. There are stories of animals being altruistic to humans,
dolphins that have helped injured surfers, but these tend to be the exception rather
than the rule and almost always involve animals considered to have higher
levels of intelligence.
Animal intelligence is a complex topic in and of itself and
one that I have only just dipped my toes into; part of this year’s summer
reading includes ‘The Emotional Lives of Animals’ by Marc Bekoff and I have
only just finished the introduction. The way sciences view animals inner lives
is changing and is much more nuanced than my university days when even then
anthropomorphism was viewed with deep skepticism.
I get that, anthropomorphism is in many ways the wrong way to
view animal consciousness and emotions but its not wholly wrong.
Anthropomorphism presupposes that man is distinct from animals, that we are
above them, and there is no way they can have the same emotional range. This of
course misses the point that we are animals, we are part of that ecosystem,
maybe we are more complex, have a greater degree of social interactions but we
are just a smart ape, the current leader in evolutions intelligence race (although
that’s a whole other debate, there are ‘lower intelligence’ animals that have
remained unchanged for millennia and existed long before todays human evolved,
arent they winners in the evolution game?).
So how much of the Robins ‘friendship’ with me is genuine,
is it just purely transactional? It trusts me it will sit
beside me to take the suet, but does that only illustrate that its desire for
food outweigh the risk it perceives I am to it? On the scale of animal life on
the planet I think we can infer that the Robin has a complex social structure
and a cognitive understanding that outweighs many species, its brain, although
structurally different is close enough to ours that they too could have
evolved similar patterns of thought and
emotion at a different level. However their lived experiences are so very
different from my own that how could we have similar priorities or understanding.
Their perspective is no doubt essentially alien to me but still based on the
same principles that we are constructed on, the drive to find shelter, food and
a suitable mate to reproduce, the latter of which the Robin is doing far better
at than me.
Bob and Roberta have highlighted to me the complexities of
animal intelligence and my personal interaction with nature. As I mull these
ideas over I can also recall other relationships I have had, my dog Henry, we
definitely shared a bond, the first pair of swans I monitored, ZTG and ZOT, Half
tail the Fox on my patch as well as the Roe Deer family which became habituated
to me. With all these individuals of species very different to me I made a
connection. A connection that I realised wasn’t one sided. Far from it, the
gain I received from them was a deep pleasure for being allowed to be within
their world.
The robins are the same, they are never going to cook me dinner
but they make me happy. I viscerally enjoy watching them. I can appreciate their
beauty and trusting nature, the scientist in me is intrigued by their activities
and they are excellent prompts for deeper thinking. We both get something out
of the relationship, their benefit maybe food and an increased chance of
survival and mine is a sense of wellbeing and peace. A fair trade in my books.
