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  • The Field

    Feathers and festivity

    Nov 11, 2021 7 minutes
    WRITTEN BY CARLA PASSINO

    Isabella Beeton had no doubt. In her 1861 Book of Household Manage ment, she noted that ‘a Christmas dinner, with the middle classes of this empire, would scarcely be a Christmas dinner without its turkey’. Since then, however, birds have come to dominate more than just the festive table; from carols to cards, many have become veritable icons of the Christmas season.

    ROBIN

    With its seasonally appropriate breast, the robin is steeped in Christian folklore. Some stories link the bird’s red colouring to the blood of Jesus: as the robin tried to pick off the crown of thorns, a drop fell and stained its breast. Others say that the robin fanned the flames to keep baby Jesus warm and in so doing it scorched its breast. Either way, “The robin is the ultimate Christmas bird,” according to natural historian Stephen Moss, the author of The Twelve Birds of Christmas and The Robin: A Biography.

    The real origin of the bird’s connection with the holiday season is likely to be far more prosaic: it turns up at a time when not much else does. “The fact that midwinter is so dead in other.

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