Robin bonanza

There has been an influx - and even more videos after these ones, but, you get the picture. [Pictures, surely? - Ed.]

The robins have been keeping me busy. When I was back home in between Olympics shifts, I might get three or four videos a day. And they started to become rather long. Now I am thinking that I have been flooding the market as I am getting fewer viewers. In contrast, a 30 second one of Son of Bob is still being watched by new people (over 2000 in total so far).

But then, I guess I do it for me. Not that I watch them after I have made them. So what am I doing it for? It's become a habit, I guess. Or an addiction.

One day there was a dead starling juvenile under the back lilac and for a few days I saw only one of the little robins. This filming bonds me to them. I start naming of them and getting a sense of personality. That's risky.

I also see new behaviours: I think that robins might be a little more communal than we tend to think. One time, I am sure one was whistling and another came over to be with the first. Other times, there are chases, but of limited success, and the chased robin swiftly returns. This relative tolerance may be because there are so many young ones. Or it may be that given the relative riches of my garden and the two scrubby patches close by, the robins reckon that it's better to share. I think that David Lack has talked of this. He seemed to suggest that in tough times, robins became more rather than less tolerant of invaders if "their" patch had a feeder in it, for example.

I have seen that the young robins will cede space to a dunnock (probably an adult). Also that they don't seem to attend to robin alarms unless they are very close by. So they can determine whether that communication is relevant to them.

Anyway, there's no telling what will happen to this latest obsession.