26 August 2026

 Watering the garden in the early evening I had a very unusual encounter with a robin that I know I'll never forget. 

It flew down from somewhere above and positioned itself on the ground so very close to my feet where I stood with the hose that I was startled. My first thought was to wonder if it had made some kind of navigational error or suffered a potentially fatal lapse in its survival instincts.

As it hopped calmly around my feet, at first I froze, afraid that a sudden movement on my part would cause it to fly away at once, like any normal bird. But gradually I realised that it was completely unafraid and seemed to have no intention to do anything other than stand or gently hop around me - 

- really, really close to me - 

- giant me, looming above him, and wielding a gushing hose!

It was completely unperturbed as I clumsily and awkwardly shifted the hose to my other hand and pulled my phone out of my back pocket to photograph it, while continuing to stay as close to my big feet as the photo here shows -

 

He let me photograph him this close up -

and what a beauty he was - his colours echoing almost exactly the leaves -

He hung around me this close for a good ten minutes while I watered the same spot, not wanting him to leave any more than he seemed to not want to leave me. And very often seeming to look me straight in the eye.

Finally he took off, but only to a branch above me where he began a very loud and persistent song - long enough for me to get a good recording on Merlin to remember him by -

How common can this experience be? I've never experienced anything like it, and it has touched me.

I wear every day a bracelet with a robin because I associate them with my father and it feels like having a bit of him with me, his benevolent, unassuming presence. 

I'm also reminded of the dream I had of him that I wrote about here.

A couple of hours afterwards I was waiting for my book club to arrive - my turn to host - and thinking that he (always gregarious) would approve of both my friends and the spirit of the evening (relaxed, good conversation, gemütlichkeit)  - 

After they left I walked out into the little garden where I'd communed with my robin earlier, and inexplicably found everything I looked at indescribably beautiful -

Which I can only explain as the robin effect.