A small bird seen in British gardens and parks. Adults have reddish breasts, and males and females look alike.
Adults have reddish breasts and brown backs. Young birds lack the red breast and are spotted golden-brown.
European Robins include both migrants and birds that remain in one area. In a 1983 controlled experiment, Biebach raised 46 young from a wild population containing migratory and resident birds, then measured autumn migratory restlessness. Thirty-six birds (78%) showed this behavior, while ten were resident.
Among offspring of exclusively migratory parents, 89% showed restlessness, compared with 53% of offspring from mostly resident parents. Under these experimental conditions, the estimated heritability was 0.52. The study connects migratory tendency expressed in captivity with the migratory type of the parents.
BirdLife European Red List of Birds · Least Concern (LC) · Europe
BirdLife International’s 2021 European Red List of Birds classifies the European Robin as Least Concern (LC) in Europe, with a stable population trend.