Juvenile robins in our hedge.

Friends have identified several small birds, seen sitting in and flying from a hole in our hedge, as juvenile robins.  A male robin was seen in the same hole in the hedge as the juveniles.  Can robins breed this early?

  • Wendy S said:
    I even tried looking for the supposed grey patches using a scope on Robins in our garden but without success maybe that is also for when you have one in the hand

    It could be, which could be why the most reliable way to sex a robin is during courtship.

    Unless, [tongue-in-cheek], they're modern day robins..... Wink

  • Wendy S said:
    Don't make it any harder Mike lol

    Would I do that, make it harder! Grinning

  • Forgotten where I heard or read it and apologies if it was from someone posting on one of these RSPB threads, but someone once said that there is slight difference between the sexes in the border between the brown/grey-brown feathers and the red-orange feathers on the head of a Robin just above the beak, males having a very slight 'V' in the middle of that borderline, pointing toward the beak, and females having a straight border in the middle, absolutely no 'V' at all. Probably that is only viewable on a bird in the hand or in some other very close view or on an excellent and head-on photograph, possibly not until you see it enlarged. I trust someone will tell us if that is true (or only true occasionally) or rubbish!
  • Ann, I seem to remember some of my ringer contacts telling me that many years ago but the details were buried in my befuddled brain
  • Thanks, Pete, wonder if anyone else has ever heard or read or has seen that.
  • I love Dunnocks and think they are very beautiful.  Once when on holiday, I wandered down to the far end of the garden of the house we had rented over one Christmas and there at the end, amongst the overgrown shed and what looked like a brick barbecue structure next to the shed, a small bird hopped on the top of the barbecue only about four feet away and just below eye-level--the closest view of a Dunnock I have ever seen.  Took awhile to decide it was a Dunnock simply because its feathers were unbelievably gorgeous, something I'd never noticed before.  Then just yesterday we watched a Zoom talk about birds in Bhutan.  The speaker said he especially loved Redstarts and Accentors and Bhutan has many fabulous species of Redstarts and several Accentor species.  Having not paid much attention to the scientific names of birds, I was interested to learn that Dunnocks are Accentors and that apparently the Dunnock is now being called a Hedge Accentor.  Am I the last person to learn this?!  (I did know that although Dunnocks are also called Hedge Sparrows, they are not really Sparrows!)