Robin

The Robin is often seen as one of the more ‘friendly’ birds, often perched close to humans without showing much fear.

The truth is that Robins will instinctively follow some animals, to see if they might dig or overturn earth or soil, exposing food the Robin can swoop down to eat. In the wild, animals such as boar will overturn a great deal of soil but many other animals will dig, including human gardeners and so the Robin is also known as the ‘Gardener’s Friend’.

Why Robin Red Breast when it is clearly orange in colour? Stephen Fry in QI tells us that until relatively recently there was no colour called orange, in fact everything we’d call orange today was originally classed as red.