Gardening during the winter is an altogether different experience compared to the summer. Throughout the warmer months you become conscious that you are part of a much wider system, with birds singing in the trees, pollinators buzzing around your flowers; even your neighbours provide a sense of background activity, whether that be the noise of a lawnmower or the faint smell of a barbecue on the breeze.
Fast forward six months, the trees have lost their leaves, and there is a sense of isolation as Mother Nature shuts down around you. It’s no wonder that we take the humble robin to our hearts, as during this sense of quiet, this one little companion is happy to be with you in your garden, and enjoys your company amid your beds and borders.
Just as the rose is Britain’s favourite flower, the robin is one of the most loved birds, especially at Christmas. Robins are fiercely territorial and can live for up to two years, so it’s more than likely that you will create a strong bond with your resident robin during its lifetime.
One of the biggest challenges for our robins is surviving the winter, particularly when there is snow on the ground. Each little bird needs to eat roughly one third of its body weight each day to survive. One of the best ways to support the robin in your garden is to provide supplementary food. Robins are ground-feeding birds with large eyes, which enables them to find their invertebrate-based meals, even in the darkest of days during the winter. That ability to forage beneath trees and shrubs and on our lawns becomes almost impossible when the ground is frozen or covered in snow, which is when we need to rally and provide that extra food.
What to feed robins
Insects and invertebrates will make up most of a robin’s diet, but seeds and fruit are also eaten during the winter months. As gardeners we can provide food for our robins by encouraging as much insect life and biodiversity in our gardens as we possibly can. Bug hotels and log piles can help to increase the number of mini beasts in your garden, as can mulching your soil in the autumn with compost or well-rotted manure, increasing the biological activity which the robins can then feed on. Growing a range of trees and shrubs that fruit throughout the autumn and early winter will also help to provide food.
We can also supplement a robin’s diet with fat balls and high-energy seeds such as sunflowers, but one of their most loved snacks is mealworms. Robins, like many other birds, are more likely to spend time with us in our gardens if they feel safe. Bird tables should be positioned away from dense vegetation where predators like cats and foxes might be hiding. Place your bird table at least two metres away from any shrubs and borders to minimise the risk of attack, but if there is some vegetation just a little further than two metres away, that will allow the robins to head for safety if needed.
It’s also vital to provide fresh drinking water, which should be kept clean by replacing it regularly. Wash the bowl once a week to prevent the build-up of bacteria. A few large stones within the bowl will offer somewhere for the robins to perch while they drink.
How to provide shelter and nesting spots
A beautifully manicured and minimalist garden won’t be high on a robin’s house-hunting list. Although shrubs and trees have slightly fallen out of favour compared to naturalistic, perennial plantings, it’s those woody habitats that robins need for shelter and nesting opportunities.
Robins require an open-fronted nest box in a quiet yet sheltered part of the garden such as a dense shrub. They adore a wall that’s covered in ivy. A couple of years ago I noticed that my conifer hedge had started to die back, so I took the opportunity to create a dead hedge out of all the cut conifer foliage by packing it between the two rows of stems that were left. I planted clematis to cover the dead foliage during the summer, but this coincidentally provided a perfect nesting site for robins earlier in the year. That dense foliage and protection from predators was exactly what they needed.
Robins like their own space, so when you’re positioning your nest box, keep it away from feeding stations with lots of bird activity and away from pathways with lots of human traffic, as these poor little birds constantly feel under threat in these busy parts of the garden.
How and when robins nest
Robins are accommodating when it comes to nesting, making the best of it where they can. Consider positioning nesting boxes in climbers such as roses or honeysuckle with dense canopies. Robins are well known for finding some obscure places to nest; in my experience, from a stack of terracotta pots in a potting shed to, more recently, under a piece of tarpaulin which was covering my log splitter.
North or east-facing nest boxes are ideal, avoiding exposure to the strongest light during the early summer.
Robins lay their eggs anytime between the end of March and June and can achieve two or three broods during the spring and early summer. When you install your nest box, be sure to clean it every autumn with warm soapy water.
Redbreast facts:
- Robins are incredibly territorial and demonstrate this attitude throughout the year. Male robins will attack any trespasser in their garden in a gladiatorial-style battle which looks incredibly ferocious. Although a fight to the death is rare, it can get very close, such is the determination of a robin to protect its patch.
- Both male and female robins have red breasts and can puff out their chests as a warning sign and act of aggression, especially during nesting season.
- Robins lay pale eggs, speckled in a rusty brown colour.
- Robins are one of the few garden birds that sing throughout the winter; both sexes sing as a way of maintaining their territories.
- Robins became associated with Christmas largely due to Victorian postmen who wore red tunics, known as robin redbreasts. Robins soon appeared on Christmas cards as a symbol of a message carrier.
- Some robins migrate from Scandinavia to Britain, while others, predominantly the females, leave Britain to spend the winter in France and Spain, avoiding the worst of the cold weather.
- Both male and female robins look similar and can be found in our gardens all year round.
- As with many of us, the occasional treat of a bit of grated cheese goes down very well with a robin.