Feeding Habits He fed from a small ceramic dish filled with biscuit and currants which we placed on the steps to the backdoor. He would often jump into the house if we placed the dish inside. He liked to perch upon the mat just inside the doorway and occasionally he would land on the carpet. We tried putting different types of food in his dish to establish his diet. What he avoided were: live mealworms, cheese, blackberries or any fresh fruit What he liked were: Dried fruit (currants or sultanas chopped small), butter rich biscuit chopped into small pieces and digestive biscuit in small pieces. His favourite were butter shortbread biscuits. If these were in the dish with anything else he would always opt for the butter shortbread or the odd piece of dried fruit We couldn't understand why he would not eat mealworms from the dish as these are supposed to be a favourite meal for the Robin. When he was following us around the garden, if we threw him a worm he would avoid it, however if he found one himself disturbed by our digging he wouldn't hesitate, a very choosy bird ! Roly would visit us without fail every morning between 07:30 and 08:15. As soon as we opened the back door he would swoop down onto the step and wait patiently for his dish. He would take 3 or 4 pieces of biscuit or currants and fly straight to the water dish on the pathway to wash down his meal. After his "breakfast" he would appear every 15 to 20 minutes, sometimes sooner if the weather was cold. His final meal of the day was usually close to dusk in the winter, but in the summer he would rarely appear after 8 O'clock in the evening. He carried on these habits up to his disappearance on the 4th January 2001. We logged his feeding one day (30th December 2000) and the times are listed below: 08:00 - 09:20 6 visits, then at: 09:55, 10:15, 10:40, 11:15, 11:50, 12:08, 12:25, 12:38, 12:51, 13:10 We went out for 1½ hours in the afternoon then returned for him to greet us, after which he came back at: 15:10, 15:24, 15:38, 16:01, 16:23. 21 visits in total ! The weather however was particularly cold with temperatures dipping well below zero, so there was obviously little natural food available. We also suspect that Roly became a lazy bird in our hands preferring the easy option of coming to us for food rather than feeding from natural resources in cold weather.