The robin has the all-round package: it has a sweet song, a cheekiness that captures our hearts, and a simple beauty that’s made it a fixture of Christmas cards for generations. And it was robins that got me out of bed during the darkest time of my life – a mental breakdown that meant I was off work and admitted to hospital.
When I was discharged, anxiety and paranoia made me scared to even leave my home. However, my doctor knew of my love of nature and photography, and she suggested I take short walks down to Bournemouth Gardens, then write in a diary what I saw and how I felt.
The idea was to look back on that diary and see my recovery, as when you’re going through mental illness it feels like you are never getting any better.
It worked. Without robins and nature in my life, I don’t know where I would be now. I’ve recovered from my breakdown and have a newfound confidence, thanks to this passion that I never knew I had.
Today, the robin is still one of my anchors. I regularly go to Blashford Lakes and hand-feed mealworms to a pair of robins. They come out when I call them and they perch on my rucksack. The reserve is truly essential to my wellbeing. It’s a series of old gravel pits (and an ex-RAF site) that has become a thriving network of lakes, woods and grassland. Right now there are shrews and bank voles living in the same bit of undergrowth as the robins.
The voles can be very aggressive towards each other and knock each other into the air with sheer force. There is a regular kingfisher that sits on its favourite perch by one of the hides, preening in the afternoon. There are sika deer and rabbits, and a jay that does the best imitation of a buzzard I’ve ever heard.
But it’s the robins that will always have a place in my heart. There’s something special about having a wild bird trust you enough to eat from your hand. It is said that swimming with dolphins is the ultimate wildlife experience, but the robins do it for me.
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