When I was a little girl, I loved the English robins I read about in books like The Secret Garden, and other stories. Tiny little birds that hop jauntily around and dig up worms — they were sometimes called robin redbreasts (which are the males). And so I assumed they were like our Australian robins (see the pic below.)

But when I finally saw some actual English robins, they weren’t so much red as orangey-red, which surprised me. And American robins are also a kind of orange.

Our red robins (see pic on the right)  have really bright red breasts, and there are several kinds of red-breasted robins here.  But I didn’t think much more about it — we’re on different sides of the world, after all.

But in fact we have a number of different colored robins here — and the most spectacular in my opinion is the pink robin, which I discovered only recently.

Pink? Yes, really bright pink, and you might be forgiven for thinking the photos are faked, or some nasty person caught a robin and dyed its feathers — but no, they really are a beautiful bright pink.
Google “Pink Robins” and you’ll see heaps of different photos.
These photos are by My Rock and Art Photography, and are used with permission. I found them on the Facebook group NativeBirds of Australia

Aren’t they adorable? And these photos were taken down the coast from where I live, so it was even more surprising that I’d never seen one.

You can see the many different robins we have here on this site. I can tell you, it blew me away, seeing all the colors — I’ve really only seen (or noticed) the red robins. But then the birds are tiny and hop around and hide really well, so I might have just caught a glimpse of some different ones and assumed they were some other kind of bird. We have a lot of colorful birds here.

Do you enjoy watching birds? I’m just a casual observer, but I like birds, and finding out more about them. I’m not sure if there’s a word for the “proper” bird-watchers in the USA. In the UK they call them “twitchers” — though I have a UK friend who calls her gentleman friend “a parrot botherer” which I think is delightful. I don’t think there’s a special term in Australia, but as I’m not one, I don’t actually know if there is or not. But for me, birds are an endless source of entertainment and delight.