European robin
The European robin, known simply as the robin or robin redbreast in the British Isles, is a small insectivorous passerine bird belonging to the Old World flycatcher family Muscicapidae. It is found across Europe, as far east as Western Siberia, and as far south as North Africa. It is sedentary in the west and south of its range, and migratory in the north and east of its range where winters are harsher.
It is in length. The male and female are identical in plumage, with an orange-toned red breast and face lined with grey, brown upper-parts and a whitish belly. Juveniles are distinct, being freckled brown all over and lacking the red breast. First-winter immatures resemble the adults, except they have more obvious yellow-brown tips to the wing covert feathers, which are inconspicuous or absent in adults.
Etymology
The distinctive orange breast of both sexes contributed to the European robin's original name of "redbreast". The word orange did not become a recognised colour name in English until the 16th century, by which time the fruit of the same name had been introduced. Other names for the bird in different languages also refer to its distinctive colouring: Czech červenka, Dutch roodborstje, French rouge-gorge, Swedish rödhake, German Rotkehlchen, Italian pettirosso, Spanish petirrojo, Hungarian vörösbegy, and Portuguese pisco-de-peito-ruivo.In the 15th century, when it became popular to give human names to familiar species, the bird came to be known as robin redbreast, which was eventually shortened to robin. As a given name, Robin is originally a diminutive of the name Robert. The term robin is also applied to some birds in other families with red or orange breasts. These include the American robin and the Australasian robins of the family Petroicidae, the relationships of which are unclear.
Other older English names for the bird include ruddock and robinet. In American literature of the late 19th century, this robin was often referred to as the English robin.
Taxonomy and systematics
The European robin was described by Carl Linnaeus in 1758 in the 10th edition of his Systema Naturae under the binomial name Motacilla rubecula. Its specific epithet rubecula is a diminutive derived from the Latin ruber, meaning 'red'. The genus Erithacus was described by French naturalist Georges Cuvier in 1800, giving the bird its current binomial name E. rubecula. The genus name Erithacus is from Ancient Greek and refers to an unknown bird, now usually identified as robin.The genus Erithacus was formerly classified as a member of the thrush family but is now known to belong to the Old World flycatcher family Muscicapidae. The genus formerly included the Japanese robin and the Ryukyu robin, but these east Asian species were shown in molecular phylogenetic studies to be more similar to a group of other Asian species than to the European robin; in a reorganisation of the genera, the Japanese and the Ryukyu robins were moved to the resurrected genus Larvivora leaving the European robin as the sole extant member of Erithacus. A 2010 phylogenetic analysis placed Erithacus in a subfamily which otherwise contained only African species, but its exact position with respect to the other species in that subfamily was not resolved. More detailed analysis in 2023 confirmed it to be the sole European member of this tropical African subfamily, in which it is in a basal position.
Subspecies
Within their extensive Eurasian range, robins exhibit some variation, though not enough to constitute distinct populations that could be classified as subspecies. Robin subspecies are mainly distinguished by forming resident populations on islands and in mountainous areas. The robin found in the British Isles and much of western Europe, Erithacus rubecula melophilus, occurs as a vagrant in adjacent regions. E. r. witherbyi from northwest Africa, Corsica, and Sardinia closely resembles E. r. melophilus but has shorter wings. The northeasternmost birds, large and fairly washed-out in colour, are E. r. tataricus. In the southeast of its range, E. r. valens of the Crimean Peninsula, E. r. caucasicus of the Caucasus and northern Transcaucasia, and E. r. hyrcanus southeastwards into Iran are generally accepted as significantly distinct.On Madeira and the Azores, the local population has been described as E. r. microrhynchos, and although not distinct in morphology, its isolation seems to suggest the subspecies is valid.
Canary Islands robins
The most distinctive birds are found in Gran Canaria and Tenerife, which may be considered two distinct species or at least two different subspecies. They are readily distinguished by a white eye-ring, an intensely coloured breast, a grey line that separates the orange-red from the brown colouration, and the belly is entirely white.Cytochrome b sequence data and vocalisations indicate that the Gran Canaria/Tenerife robins are indeed very distinct and probably derived from colonisation by mainland birds some 2 million years ago.
In 2003, Christian Dietzen, Hans-Hinrich Witt and Michael Wink published a study in Avian Science entitled "The phylogeographic differentiation of the European robin Erithacus rubecula on the Canary Islands revealed by mitochondrial DNA sequence data and morphometrics: evidence for a new robin taxon on Gran Canaria?". In it, they concluded that the robins on Gran Canaria diverged genetically from their European relatives as far back as 2.3 million years, while the Tenerife ones took another half a million years to make this leap, 1.8 million years ago. The most likely reason is that this bird colonised the Canary Islands in a different way, arriving at the oldest island first and then moving on to the neighbouring island.
A thorough comparison between E. r. marionae and E. r. superbus is pending to confirm that the first one is effectively a different subspecies. Initial results suggest that birds from Gran Canaria have wings about 10% shorter than those on Tenerife. The west Canary Islands' populations are younger and only beginning to diverge genetically. Robins from the western Canary Islands on El Hierro, La Palma and La Gomera are more similar to the European type subspecies.
Finally, the robins which can be found on Fuerteventura are the European subspecies, which is not surprising as the species does not breed either in this island or on nearby Lanzarote; they are wintering birds or just on passage during their migration between Africa and Europe.
Other robins
The larger American robin is a much larger bird named from its similar colouration to the European robin, but the two birds are not closely related, with the American robin instead belonging to the same genus as the common blackbird, a species which occupies much of the same range as the European robin. The similarity between the European and American robins lies largely in the orange chest patch found in both species. This American species was incorrectly shown "feathering its nest" in London in the film Mary Poppins, but it only occurs in the UK as a very rare vagrant.Some South and Central American Turdus thrushes are also called robins, such as the rufous-collared thrush. The Australian "robin redbreast", more correctly the scarlet robin, is more closely related to crows and jays than it is to the European robin. It belongs to the family Petroicidae, whose members are commonly called "Australasian robins". The red-billed leiothrix is sometimes named the "Pekin robin" by aviculturalists. Another group of Old World flycatchers, this time from Africa and Asia, is the genus Copsychus; its members are known as magpie-robins, one of which, the Oriental magpie robin, is the national bird of Bangladesh.
Description
The adult European robin is long and weighs, with a wingspan of. The male and female bear similar plumage: an orange breast and face, lined by a bluish grey on the sides of the neck and chest. The upperparts are brownish, or olive-tinged in British birds, and the belly whitish, while the legs and feet are brown. The bill and eyes are black. Juveniles are a spotted brown and white in colouration, with patches of orange gradually appearing.Distribution and habitat
The robin is found in Eurasia, from Western Siberia in the east to Algeria in the south, and on Atlantic islands as far west as the Central Group of the Azores and Madeira. It is a vagrant in Iceland. In the southeast, its range extends to Iran and the Caucasus mountain range. Irish and British robins are largely resident but a small minority, usually females, migrate to southern Europe during the winter, with some going as far as Spain. Scandinavian and Russian robins migrate to Britain and western Europe to escape the harsher winters. These migrants can be recognised by the greyish tone of the upper parts of their bodies and duller orange breast. Continental European robins that migrate during winter prefer spruce woods in northern Europe, in contrast to their preference for parks and gardens in Great Britain.In southern Iberia, habitat segregation of resident and migrant robins occurs, with resident robins remaining in the same woodlands where they bred.
Attempts to introduce the European robin into Australia and New Zealand in the late part of the 19th century were unsuccessful. Birds were released in the areas around Melbourne, Auckland, Christchurch, Wellington and Dunedin by various local acclimatisation societies, but none of them became established. A similar outcome occurred in North America when birds failed to become established after being released in Long Island, New York in 1852, Oregon in 1889–1892, and the Saanich Peninsula in British Columbia in 1908–1910.