The female Robin perches on the shed door.

I haven't been posting too often recently because of the sensitive nature of the birds that I have been concentrating on but with Spring well and truly here with us now birds are starting to breed.  I have been doing some work in my garden, converting some sheds and a chicken run in to a grow room. I have replaced a roof and generally tidied up and repaired some rotten wood.  The reason I mention this is because, as I have worked there has been quite a lot of banging around and noise.  Never the less, yesterday as I stood contemplating my next little job, a Robin hopped up towards me and then disappeared in to the shed through  a missing plank.  Seconds later I saw it again as it disappeared in to a nest box which was hanging from the wire of an attached aviary. 

I watched for the next hour as two Robins, obviously male and female, took it in turns to bring nesting material to the box.  The irony of all this is the choice of nest site, an aviary that had been built originally to contain birds now being used by a pair of birds that had found a way to get in and of course back out again easily.  The nest box is really cosy, under a clear plastic roof and completely safe from cats and magpies, what more could a nesting pair of birds want.  Because I had originally set this aviary up some 10 to 12 years ago to allow me easy access to check the nest box, it means that I can easily check the box now to see how things are progressing.  Robins being the confiding species that they are means that they often choose nest sites very close to humans,  in occupied sheds and the like.

Female Robin carries nesting material to her nest.
  

I am really looking forward to watching these birds and hope that they go on and breed successfully.  In previous years when I have had blackbirds nesting in the garden, magpies predated the nest when the eggs had hatched.  I am quite certain that there is absolutely no way that a magpie will be able to get in to this nest.  At the moment, nest building has only just begun but already it is a beautiful construction.  I will hopefully be able to post some good pictures as breeding progresses. It's already been interesting to see that it's the female doing the majority of the work. Robins are not sexually dimorphic and normally you have no idea of the sex of the bird that you are looking at.  However, with the male Robin sitting in the tree above, singing his heart out it was obvious that the bird doing all the work was the female.  Once I knew which was which I could clearly see that the female isn't as bright as the male.