OK, I know, posts should appear more frequently and all that, especially if this organ’s fanbase is to expand at all. But you know, life, work and stuff get in the way. There are always several fresh insights waiting for the finishing touches, but there you go — there’s a reason they haven’t been finished and much as they’re full of good things, I’m not sure they’ll ever see the light of day.

But — there’s always a bird or two, right? And if we don’t have the glories of summer, winter does bring out a few interesting little feathery creatures. Take robins for instance.

There we have it — the European Robin (Erithacus rubecula) — subject of a thousand Christmas cards, beloved by all. I only ever saw one, on Hampstead Heath, in 20 years’ living in London. So it was a pleasure to realise they have them here too.

Except, of course, they aren’t related in any way to the European version. I’m told that this is a classic example of convergent evolution: unrelated birds developing similar traits. See this guy?

Dead spit of his European relative, no? Of course the early settlers who showed up in these parts a mere blink of an eye ago thought it was also a robin and didn’t think to name it anything else.

But in fact, according to the internet, the European version is from the family Muscicapidae (Old World flycatchers), while our Aussie versions are from the family Petroicidae: they are more closely related to other Australasian songbirds, not to European robins at all.

That said, having stalked that poor Muscapid on Hampstead Heath without landing one decent shot, here the hunting has been a bit more successful.

That’s only because there’s been more opportunity though. And it’s never exactly easy: this Rose Robin (Petroica rosea) had a habit of showing up just before nightfall (ie about 3:30pm) on gloomy days only and hanging around for a few minutes before flitting away. And unlike many small birds, it doesn’t announce itself with a lot of twittering and the like. But among its few virtues is punctuality — it could generally be relied on to show up in the same place at the same time most of the time. And once or twice it stepped into a shaft of sunlight for a second or two.

Australia has quite a few variations of robin, too: apart from Rose above, we have Red-Capped, Hooded, Yellow, Eastern Yellow, and White-Breasted — not to mention a few cousins among the Flycatchers. Which, for the OCD type like me, just means there are more to be capture than have been captured — an urgent quest to be pursued relentlessly.

In the absence of those, then, let’s have a look at the Flame variety.

That’s the male, above — but as this species is sexually dimorphic — which doesn’t mean they swing on a Friday night with the other colours of robin, just that males and females have different plumage. Here’s a femine version:

Male, female, rose or flame, these are very hard to approach. They are what you might call ‘flighty’. You see one — a tiny flash of orange in a Australia’s vast landscape — but if you sneak closer, they wait until you’re just within range and then flit. But not far: just to another perch where you can see them but they’re too far to photograph. It’s just like that story about the Guineafowl I told so many years ago.

You have to be persistent. And ready. If you stalk one of these for hours, only to find there’s no memory card in your camera — and I’m not saying I have — you will definitely feel silly, and swear a lot.

It’s good to know, though, that the local landowners care enough about these little geezers to seek state funding to help preserve them.

Which is a good thing. Because anytime you’re out walking the dog past the rubbish tip near the sewage farm and you see something like the tableau below, it’s a good day.