Robins are one of the UK’s most popular birds and many love to see them darting about their garden, especially during the festive season. There is one woman who has been documenting her little garden visitors on TikTok and is now so friendly with an entire family of the little redbreasted birds that they greet her in the morning and fly into her home.
Zoe Baysting regularly shares videos of her special visitors and gives a complete rundown of how it all began and what foods the robins love the most. She said: “Looking back, I realised the biggest thing was just noticing, noticing the little bird every day on the fence. And then I started to spend more time outside on my lunch breaks with a cup of tea.”
Zoe started throwing food down for the robin, but there was one the bird went for most.
She said: “I threw some seed down, and I realised she always picked out the suet pellet parts from the seed mixes, so I realised that’s her favourite.”
Zoe said she continued her daily habit of sitting outside and just allowed the bird to jump about and notice her. Slowly, the robin gained more confidence that Zoe was a safe person to be around, and eventually the robin began eating some of the suet from Zoe’s hand.
Soon, the female robin (which Zoe named Julie) began bringing her male friend (which Zoe called Weeman) to Zoe’s garden. When Zoe noticed them taking food away with them, she noticed they did in fact have babies, five babies to feed. This is when Zoe began her research.
Zoe said: “I discovered that they needed live feed to be able to thrive. And I researched all about robins, and that’s when I found out that the average lifespan of a robin is only 13 months.
“But it is not that they can’t live longer, the record is over 20 years, it’s just that they are so susceptible to starvation due to lack of food, they are preyed upon by domestic cats and then just such cold temperatures and stuff that they just really struggle to get by that first year of their life.
“The suet pellets really help them in the wintertime because they have the extra fats they need.”
Julie and Weeman now sit on Zoe’s door handles when they want food or to sit inside for warmth. Zoe said she is just happy to support them, and it is all on the birds’ terms. You can follow her story via her TikTok @zoeaysting
