Blackbird and Robin

I found myself considering the derisory term 'bird-brain', where the suggestion is that the recipient is of very limited intelligence. Studying the activities of the birds in our garden, especially the resident robin, I have to question the accuracy of the expression.

This morning I peered out of the kitchen window to see the robin standing on the patio, looking pointedly from me to the empty slabs and back again. I got the message. Basically he was telling me that what he was seeing there was, without question, an absence of food. Before I knew what I was doing I'd dropped my duster and polish and was scuttling out with a fresh supply of fat cake and seed and a jug of hot water to defrost the bird bath. As I chiselled away at the ice, he hopped around my feet, selecting the choicest samples from the breakfast offering, snaffling a couple of raisins before the blackbird arrived and scoffed the lot - the blackbird, though bigger and a prolific consumer of raisins and grapes, is not brave enough to partake whilst I'm still visible.

As I returned to the kitchen sink to wash my hands and thaw myself out, I looked back out at the patio and there he was, that tough little robin, one eye on me, one eye on the incoming blackbird and the last remaining raisins. I could almost swear he gave me a little nod. 

I don't know about 'bird-brain', there seems to be plenty of intelligence in that little head.