Bah humbug! This isn’t the time to get soppy about the warm and generous world we live in: this moment, this very moment as the winter solstice bites, is when you should realise that life is a cruel and terrible drama and every day you survive is the most glorious triumph.
Monday
I sing. You got a problem with that? I sing throughout the winter and no other British bird does that, bloody fools. What’s more, I sing as well as any male that was ever hatched. I sing as if my life depended on: because it does. Some find it a beautiful song: haunting and wistful, so unlike the songs we will sing in spring. Certainly the phrases are longer and the individual notes more sustained: but who gives a stuff? My sweet song has a meaning and that meaning is piss off.
My songs are an honest indicator: they tell the listener that I’m a strong bird in her prime
Tuesday
Mostly it works: just the song and I have the place to myself. My songs are an honest indicator: they tell the listener that I’m a strong bird in her prime. You see, unlike all those others silly birds, we robins hold a territory all winter: one in which we sleep, feed and have our being. And if you don’t like it you can – well, now you know what my songs means, you can act on it. OK?
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Wednesday
There was a robin at the edge of my territory today, but I paid him no mind. One of my own. From the last brood of summer. He’s doing all right. Back then I built a nest low in a hedge, nice piece of work, actually. I’m not one for fancy ideas about nests, like some robins: let others nest in kettles, flowerpots and wellington boots. Anyway, it worked; four of them fledged and flew off to seek their fortunes. I wonder how many will survive the winter. If any.
Thursday
Stop calling it aggression. I hate that expression. But when an interloper comes into my place ignoring my fine song, I’ve got to do something or die. It happened when I was setting the place up in early autumn. A young male. Cocky. So I posed him off: look at that red, sunshine. Don’t mess with me! He posed back. Reckoned he had the measure of me. So I went for him. It’s called home advantage, son.
Friday
A hard frost. That’s all I need. Sure, I looked beautiful against the white with my red breast: certainly the humans thought so as they passed with their silly phones. But bugger that and bugger them: earth was hard as iron, water like a stone and I needed to eat. Beautiful world, eh? Sheer bloody hell if you ask me.
Saturday
Still cold but I’m getting by. Sorting through leaf litter for spiders and other beasts trying to escape the killing cold. Busy day in the park: humans all excited, carrying big bags full of stuff. A robin, how cute! I survived a whole week, how cute is that? Now for the next. Taking each song as it comes.
Robin (erithacus rubecula) CV
Lifespan Maybe two years
Eating habits Spiders, worms, berries
Hobbies Music
Sexual preferences He’ll look just like me
Photograph by Ray Wilson / Alamy