European Robin

Various | Curious Nature

The robin is a common sight in our gardens and parks, and at Christmastime on cards and decorations. Like many birds, some robins migrate seasonally and so sequencing and studying its genome will help us to understand how birds navigate using the magneto receptors in their eyes to “see” the Earth’s magnetic fields.

The Secret Garden

Frances Hodgson Burnett

In this classic children’s story from 1911, Mary Lennox, a spoiled but lonely child, finds happiness when a friendly robin reveals a mysterious key that unlocks a secret garden. In Hodgson Burnett’s words “nothing in the world is quite as adorably lovely as a robin when he shows off – and they are nearly always doing it.” An image of the tame garden bird that many of us are still familiar with today.