Robin
Erythacus rubecula
Robin
A great photo by a Nigel Wedge of Britain’s National bird. The Robin (Erithacus rubecula) is the one Rannoch bird that you can hear singing in the autumn and maybe even winter. Both males and females sing to defend their territories and therefore their food supply. It is very unusual for female birds of other species to sing. Both sexes are feisty and will fight each other in territorial disputes. This behaviour was studied by Niko Tinbergen (a famous ethologist and pupil of the father of ethology, Konrad Lorenz). Tinbergen found that the fighting behaviour could be triggered by a ball of red wool on a cane. The wool acted as a ‘releaser’. There is a famous monograph on the robin written by the British ornithologist, David Lack.
More recent research has moved into the amazing quantum world. Although we have resident robins our population is swelled by migrants from Scandinavia every winter. It has been discovered that the robin’s ability to navigate depends on quantum interactions at the atomic level without which the earth’s magnetic field would not be strong enough to interact with the cells in the robin’s brain. This is the cutting edge research field of ‘quantum biology’. Another discovery in the same field is that enzymes and photosynthesis would not work without quantum interactions. Without enzymes and photosynthesis we would not exist. Go plant a tree and marvel at a universe that we have scarcely begun to understand. It is truly weird.
(14th December 2019)
Smug’s Robin in Glasgow
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