Robin politics

Again, pointers.

00:00-00:15 Bobbit sings short phrases, listening for a response. I carried on filming him for 10 minutes, during which he flew around me, stopping for periods in different places. I have edited it, so the singing intervals were actually separated by more time.

00:15 Then he flew onto the fence, where he often watches the bushes south of my garden.

00:27 A blackbird swishes him off the fence!

00:34 Bobbit retreats to his favourite perch. Is that a yawn?

00:48 He flies up to grab an insect from the ivy on the fence.

01:03 He returns to the fence - with a rather delightful hop... perhaps I surprised him.

01:22 Still on the fence, he starts these little contact calls and in between listens. I could hear two robins responding - one near the front of my garden and the other to the south. The three birds took it in turns. They were ascertaining who was where. This is geopolitics. "That is my neighbour; he is expected to be there, and that's OK."

01:41 This is included because he looks so beautiful.

02:01 Back on the fence and more political conversations with the neighbours.

02:19 Other birds singing, not robins, and a squirrel running along the fence. During this filming, the squirrel nearly crashed into us three times, but unless they come as close as that blackbird, Bobbit's not bothered.

02:23 Blackbird and dunnock in the lilac above.

02:28 In response to another robin, Bobbit sings another phrase, then...

02:41 ...seems to have swallowed a fly.

02:44 Blackbird feeding.

02:48 Another burst of song from Bobbit.

03:08 He moved down to inspect the plant pots. I like how he stars upward once.

03:16 Blackbird watching.

03:21 When Bobbit flies off, he chases another robin out of the lilac and away toward the front of the garden.

Now, these bursts of song haven't been what I have usually witnessed in the garden. It seemed to me that he had some sense of concern and was keeping his ears and eyes open, so that he was ready to act when the time came. The songs allowed him to "place" his neighbours.

I'll wrap this up with words from Vinciane Despret's excellent Living as a Bird:

[T]he bird’s song becomes one with the space. Quite literally. The song is the expressive mode through which a sung space takes shape and becomes the bird’s body.

[...]

Fraser Darling [comes] to the fascinating assertion that, for birds, one of the most important functions of territory ‘is the provision of periphery – periphery being defined as that kind of edge where there is another bird of the same species occupying a territory.’ Put another way, ‘by pushing up against each other, rather than spreading themselves out, the birds are giving themselves peripheries.’ He explains that, because it is ‘a place with a focal point or two – the nest site and the singing post – and periphery’,9 territory enables two conflicting needs to be met at the same time, in that it offers security but also a border zone where things happen. And, according to Fraser Darling, this is what is happening here. The periphery is a central hub of life, or perhaps even of vitalization.