The Singer at the Close of Day.

I was out in the garden at twilight tonight being treated to the most delightful of company. A little robin was sitting on a nearby branch singing his little heart out. Although other members of the thrush family also sing wonderfully, only the robin sings quite like that. And in my experience, they only do so in the spring and summer. (Others say differently.) Allow me to reprise a ditty I published to this blog some years ago: 

 

When I have given up the ghost

And gone to take my final rest

Please lay me where the robin sings

For robin’s song is quite the best

 

And here’s a sampler from YouTube to offer some vindication of my belief: 

 

All we need now is for the twilight hours to feel more like May and less like February.

 

Footnote:

 

I sometimes wonder whether the robin is a bird at all. I'm very fond of birds generally, but the robin is more just than a favourite; there's a singularity about it that seems to place it into a category of life all its own, as though it's only pretending to be a bird. I remember the robin which used to follow me around the garden, taking the private little piles of oats I gave it to feed its nest. I remember the day it flew from the ground and hovered in front of my face, making the kind of eye contact which is its most compelling characteristic. It disappeared a few days later and I never saw it again.