We are so familiar that we can forget how robin is a shortening of Robert. An older name for the species was ‘redbreast’ and, earlier still, the ‘ruddock’. However, in the 19th century, it started to ...

There is hardly a corner of the world where homesick British migrants in the 18th and 19th centuries have not managed to find ...

And that is why every Robin born ever since has been born with a red breast. But the splash of colour on the breast is not red; it is orange. That discrepancy is explained by the fact that the ...