Why Do Robins Sing in November?

I love the song, ‘I know why (and so do you),’ by the Glenn Miller Orchestra. I loved it, again, when Manhattan Transfer re-recorded it. It was very uncool to love Manhattan Transfer but love them I did.  I could never get the words right, though.
It is: Why do Robins sing in December?
         Long before the springtime is due?
         And even though it’s snowing, violets are growing,
         I know why and so do you.
I always muddled the month. As long as the month ends in ‘ber’ then there’s no reason to think that you have sung it wrong. True, it’s unlikely to be snowing in September but stubbornly that is frequently what my brain chose to sing, whenever I saw a Robin.

It was also a song that my parents liked (Dad more than Mum, I think). I remember having a conversation with my Dad about it when I was about nine or ten. It was December and it was snowing. We were walking back from Lake Meadows Park with our tea trays, red faced with exhaustion. My sister was about 4, in her cute little round, naughty phase. She was wearing a pink and white furry coat that had become soaked through as snow had stuck in clumps to it when she rolled down the hill. The hood was up, making her face seem even rounder, like some exotic bear that had been plucked from its tropical environment to spend winter in a British zoo. She had begun to grizzle. I was glad to go home, as I could feel my throbbing chilblains within my wellies. As we walked, we seemed to be serenaded by robins, sitting on bare beaches and Dad joined them in song.
I never quite grew out of my annoying ‘why phase’ and so I asked, “But why do they? They song says I know why and so do you but I don’t.”
Dad explained that Robins don’t migrate like other birds and are really sociable, loving to chat to people all year round.
“But,” he went on to say, “It’s a song about love. They sing because of love. All songs are about love.”

Grief is a thing with feathers, as Max Porter wrote and even when you think you are not actively grieving anymore, something can fly up out of the blue and make you catch your breath.
The jumper department of Marks and Spencer at Christmas, a song on the radio, walking past someone wearing your descended loved one’s perfume. Today, it was a Robin.

Before my parents died I was a firm believer in no afterlife.
“When you’re dead, you’re dead,” I would say harshly, “a belief in an afterlife is just for those who can’t accept death.”
Then when Mum died and I went a bit bonkers I had this thing about birds. If you’ve been reading my blogs before, you will remember the bird series. I started to think that psychopomps were a real thing and that the Greek myth of spirits coming back, as birds to guide people towards death might be true. We felt that my dad had chosen to be a very noisy, slightly angry Robin. As I trudged around the streets and footpaths in my traumatised state I spotted birds everywhere and wrote about them here.

I have been clearing my Mum’s art studio and put aside a couple of empty sketch pads to give to one of my pupils who loves art. An hour or two after she had left, her mum sent me some photos of her using the books already. Her first picture. A Robin.

Why do robins sing in November? I know why and so do you.