Colours

The colour of the Lammas leaves in yesterday's post inspired this.

I am trying to write a piece on colour for a journal. Here is the abstract I submitted (it hasn't been accepted yet):

FOR THE LOVE OF A RED BREAST

European robins, also known as robin redbreasts, voted the UK’s favourite bird in the 1960s and in 2015, retain a significant place in this nation’s symbolism. They are featured on Christmas cards and often in literature. Robins are resident throughout the year; tend to be curious and friendly; are often seen; and carol their melodious song across all seasons. Yet their most notable feature is the red breast plumage (on both males and females). The colour is more accurately orange or perhaps an orangey-red, but the fiery glow in a drab English winter and the warm contrast against green foliage and brown soil persuade us that we see crimson, blood-red, scarlet. So great is the affection my ancestors have had for this little bird that, across the world, birds of many other species – sharing only the “red” breast - bear the familiar name “robin”.

Robins themselves use their breast plumage in both love and war, advertising their status as a partner or waving their puffed-up breast feathers as a red rag to a bull, with the bull, in this case, being another robin. The red, or orangey-red, breast is even more significant to the robin than it is to us.

The intimate relationship that arose between me and the robin in my garden inspired this photo-essay, in which I explore, through “red”-tinted spectacles, the past, present and future of the robin and the robin’s entanglement with humans. By diffracting information on robins gleaned from science, natural and cultural history, folklore, literature, and my personal relationship with a redbreast, an econarrative of human and more-than-human relations emerges; a story that spirals from the small space of my urban garden to an expansive eco-imaginary of felt kinship.

I wondered if in UV light robins would sparkle more. I cannot find anything suggesting they do. The necks of pigeons do not require special light. They already shimmer.

In the garden, I focused on colours.

I am tempted to read a book about colour, but the ones I can find all seem to be about how humans have interpreted, used and made colours. I want to read about colours in plants and animals. I don't care how humans have purloined them.

There is something about red leaves... I mean trees that have red leaves, like copper beeches and so on. They absorb different light... are they less efficient? I believe so but I can't recall. I have read about it somewhere. But why are the young holly and oak leaves red at first before turning green in their summer growth when I am not sure they are like that in spring? Need to research... but not now as it's late and I have to get up early (to go back to London).