The red robin is one of Ireland’s top-20 most widespread garden birds.
Robins are among the many feathered visitors to Ballyyahoo.
They are easy to recognise and you’ve probably seen them in your own garden, or in your local park or woodland.
If you are near them listen out to hear the red robin singing. The male has a particularly beautiful song.
Robins stand out because of their plump red breast and it’s round shape. They look as though they have no neck and their little round heads are olive brown.
The wings are also brown although slightly darker and the tail gets darker towards the very tip.
If you get a chance to look underneath a robin you’ll see that from below the red breast they are white.
They have short beaks and beautiful black eyes and their legs and feet are a light brown.
Although young robins do not yet have the red breast they are also easy to spot because they share that distinctive round shape of the adult.
THE RED ROBIN DANCE
They strut and hop and always appear to be very curious.
A lot of the Ballyyahooians, like Biddy the Witch of Ballyyahoo leave food out to attract Robins.
Biddy has several Robins who appear so regularly that she thinks of them as friends.
Maggie Many Cats also loves the red Robins but she doesn’t feed them and it’s not because she’s mean.
You see she doesn’t want to lead the little robins towards danger – her cats, like all cats, would be quick to pounce.
HAVE YOU EVER SEEN A RED ROBIN FLY?
Robins often undertake short flights and you’ll often see them flying low. They keep quite close to the ground – sadly, this makes it easier for cats to grab them.
Robins are very friendly and if you are sitting outside when one is around it will often come quite close to you, if you sit still and don’t make noise that is.
If you feed red robins they will visit regularly and you will have lots of fun watching these friendly little birds.
Robins are known to love mealworms so if you supply those you’ll soon have lots of little red-breasted friends.
More Birds from Ballyyahoo.
BALLYYAHOO – ENCOURAGE YOUR CHILDREN TO LOVE NATURE
I hope you are enjoying these nature stories.
All the Ballyyahoo stories and photographs are free because the aim of Ballyyahoo is to encourage children to love nature.
If you and your children love nature and enjoy what you read here you can support Ballyyahoo by buying a Ballyyahoo book.
Maggie Many Cats and Other Stories is a complete collection of Ballyyahoo stories.
Each story contains clickable links to educational resources on this site so your child can discover the joys of nature as they read.
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