The robin, or perhaps two robins are flitting around with so much stuff in their beaks that they can barely see where they are going. They are scarifying my near-by lawn, possibly saving me from the trouble of doing so, ripping at fragments of dried grass and moss. They want to go into the thick hedge of ivy, but I am sitting too near it.
I am sitting on the new stone patio area, enjoying the warm sun of this Easter Bank Holiday, making a slow recovery from the brain-fog and other discomforts of Covid. I am appreciating the new area of the garden, mildly speculating about its development, listening to the constant humming of insects (or maybe it's still the Covid tinnitus). Anyway, the robins want me out of it.
This is their chosen place. They need to fly from the lawn to the back of the garden chair, and then, after looking all round, make a swift hop into the ivy with their load of building materials, but now I'm sitting on the chair they have appropriated as a landing stage. How infuriating is that?
It is infuriating enough to make at least one of them dive so close to my head that I flinch. Prior to this they have shouted at me from some distance, then hopped along the garden table to where my arm is resting in order to shout at me in close-up. One of them has come perilously close to my hand, its bright little eyes gleaming, its head tilting speculatively from side to side. Is any portion of my hand edible? Does it contain food or building material? Can it be shifted by sheer robin will-power? I remain immobile. I'm comfortable in the sunny warmth, and I'm interested to see just how far they will go to get rid of me.
People often say they have these incredibly friendly robins in their gardens. Robins who perch on the handles of their tools, who follow them around the garden, singing to them, just wanting company. Little friends. Charming robins of the sort that feature on Christmas cards, bearing good wishes.
The robins in my garden also zoom in as soon as I go out, not to be friends, but to see what I can unearth for them. I am a useful provider, as the wild boar used to be in an Anglo-Saxon forest, which is probably where the robins learned to follow creatures who could dig up grubs. Any minute now they will make me go and scarify the lawn for them, and possibly put the scarifications near to where I know they are building their nest.
I admire them for their determination, tenacity and strength in protecting what they most firmly believe to be their territory with all its resources. Their strength is such that they will kill one another if necessary, and their tenacity enables them to drive away a great lumbering giant who is seriously interrupting a vital bit of their survival process.
The lumbering giant goes back to the house to make a cup of coffee.
Friends we are not - but I do understand.
