Can you remember the first time you saw a robin? I mean specifically when and where, not just a vague sense of time and place? It’s a fair bet you probably can’t. They’re such widespread and familiar birds – especially at this time of year, when their persistent tick-tick-ticking is like a clock counting down the shortening daylight hours.
But I can tell you exactly when I saw my first robin. It was Saturday the 25th of January, 1997. I had only been in the UK for a couple of weeks. It was the first time I had been out of my native South Africa. I was finding the early darkness difficult to get used to, as South Africa doesn’t use daylight saving time. And I was probably feeling a little homesick as well. So I’d gone for a walk on Hampstead Heath, close to where I was living in Neasden. The light was starting to fade and I was making my way back to the exit when I heard a bird calling in a bush. I went to have a look. At first, I could only see a small and rather nondescript bird. But then it shifted position slightly and I could make out its red breast, which I recognised from Christmas cards and various illustrated books from my childhood.
That moment cheered me up no end. I had seen some of the sub-Saharan robin species in and around Cape Town, but spotting their European cousin, on that grey and chilly day in north west London, made me feel that I was welcome in the country that is now my home. And more than a quarter of a century later, I can still remember it very clearly!