ROBINS

[Jacksparrow]

Well done Rambo what a stalwart. Three broods . He must be Saint Rambo to have coped with that lot

[greenfinch2]

I can here one but cannot find it yet,

[nuthatch]

Well done Rambo what a stalwart. Three broods . He must be Saint Rambo to have coped with that lot

[Placido]

Wondering today whether a third brood possibility was maybe optimistic or misjudged .
Rambo came again for the first time since my first report but now his head is extremely scruffy. I'm thinking he's beginning his moult and grabbing his final nourishment before he retires for a long autumn .......

[Jacksparrow]

Wondering today whether a third brood possibility was maybe optimistic or misjudged .
Rambo came again for the first time since my first report but now his head is extremely scruffy. I'm thinking he's beginning his moult and grabbing his final nourishment before he retires for a long autumn .......

Perhaps Mrs Rambo was not so keen on being a Mum again and decamped to the woods for a well earned break from parental duties. Mother always knows best

[Jacksparrow]

My Robins' seem to have called it a day for the year. I have not seen one for nearly a week.

[Placido]

So, The Moult continues on its inexorable way ....... head now very scruffy and two streaks are becoming apparent on his breast.
Yesterday he showed himself in the pyrawotsit by flashing his fading colour at the kitchen window. Muggins went forth with mealies and threw them adjacently one by one. Himself graciously accepted them one by one.
This morn he alighted on the patio wall right up against a leg of the old pine table in the shade thereof. Pavlov's dog (moi) responded to the stimulus and tossed over a mealworm - down he came. (This gets less boring, stick with it .....)
After about 5 worms I noticed a pattern: he came down instantly when the mealie landed in the shade but was markedly reluctant when it was in the sunshine. He would come eventually but only after seemingly long thought. The shady ones caused no such delay. He came again about an hour later and I repeated the experiment with the same result. Shade Good, Sun Bad (touch of 'Animal Farm' there !! ).

We all know that the robin is a woodland bird who likes cover and I wonder whether the sunshine exposure is exacerbated by the moult. It was a definite behaviour pattern which I've never observed previously.

On this point of shade/sun, I remembered an incident during my working days: I normally arrived first and on this particular day I unlocked the front door and began to cross the Reception hall. A movement so swift that I thought something was flying low caught my eye. Looked to my left and found that it was a very large spider (the Tegeneria domesticus 2nd-year type) which had raced across Reception presumably because the air pressure altered when I pulled open the door. The point of this is that it stopped abruptly at the point where shade became a sunny shaft on the floor. It moved (slowly this time) along the frontier and never entered the sunny part.

I s'pose the point is that bright light equals exposure, and Rambo certainly doesn't fancy that at the moment.

[Jacksparrow]

Very interesting observation Placi and I cannot fault your logic . I am somewhat miffed that your Robin has chosen to spend his moult with yourself while mine has departed to somewhere more discreet one assumes.

[Placido]

I'm at a loss to explain it, Jacksparrow. Normally, like yours, whichever is that year's Best Mate disappears when the moult begins and only comes back when the chilly weather arrives and the Autumn cupboard is bare.
This lad is definitely not behaving to type ..... yet.

[Jacksparrow]

A Robin has appeared in my garden. Whether it is "my" Robin has been difficult to establish but it's nice to have to have one around again.