The scarlet robin is young, new to this world. Only a week or two out of the nest, testing boundaries not contained in and constrained by the tight confines of the straw and twig nest.
He – the youngster already has traces of the scarlet breast feathers which distinguish the male – sits on an exposed twig in full view of the denizens of the forest, calling to his parents for food.
The pademelons and Bennett’s wallabies resting in the shadows of a forest glade do not give it a second glace. But there are other eyes out there in the forest – the mad yellow eye of the goshawk among them – and the parents know the dangers.
They twitter excitedly, fluttering their wings, as if urging the youngster to seek shelter, to join his two sisters at the heart of a yellow banksia, its sharp, serrated leaves offering protection.
A young robin testing the edges of the forest world. As with all young birds, he appears slightly comical, oversized yellow beak still waiting for a rapidly growing body to catch up. He looks unformed, a little tatty compared with his sleek parents still in breeding-season plumage. And his jerky movements on an exposed branch could betray him to a predator, quick flicks of the head in the direction of leaves rustled by the wind, watching butterflies bouncing by on the breeze.
A hallmark of the scarlet robin is its startling beauty, the way it makes a statement by flashing its scarlet breast, and singing a musical descending twitter from the tops of trees to declare territory. But all the same, the showy males are wary and wily, knowing the mad yellow goshawk eyes are on them, and also the eyes of belligerent robin rivals.
The adult robin looks about him as he sings, and is ready to dart for safety at the flash of raptors’ wings.
The females, entranced by the power of the males’ beauty and song, tend to stick to the shadows, where their more muted plumage with only traces of a red breast provide perfect camouflage.
The young male still has to learn survival skills. When danger threatens he doesn’t know how to hide his beauty, to conceal it in the canopy, disguise it amid light and shade.
The more the young bird, at the urging of his parents, tries to blend in with the forest, the more he stands out. He’s scruffy, and unkempt, with uneven flashes of bright colour. But all the same this bundle of feathers, a developing wonder of nature created amid spring winds, appears made from forest, which in a sense he is. The robin is eucalyptus leaf, the pattern of wattle bark, of flowers, and fruits and seeds, of insects, and possum fur and orchid and fungi, branch and trunk made flesh, feather and bone.
It will soon be time for the young male to sing his own song, from his own perch in the forest. I hope he makes it until then.