"Wild Thing, I Think I Love You"

This robin has really moved MrQ and me and made our hearts sing. I am guilty to a certain extent of anthropomorphising pets and wild creatures but this robin is something else. It is always at the gate when we arrive home and loves to shadow us whatever we are doing. It is on hand while MrQ tends his plants and follows Jazzy dog and me on our bug hunts. I know it is only opportunistically hanging around to swoop on insects that we might disturb but we can't help loving it.

Jazzy and I were shooting a cucumber spider making afternoon tea of a fruit fly when I noticed the ivy bush twitch. I thrust my head inside. Robin was sitting there bold as brass and didn't budge, nor did I. It kept hopping trustingly closer and closer to me. In the end it was less than a foot away.

I was using my 100mm macro lens and couldn't get all of it in the frame. I had Av at f11 selected for bugs and quickly flicked to P in the hope that the camera would deal with the dark in the bush. It chose f2.8 which has resulted in a very shallow depth of field. The above image is straight out of the camera.

I've heard our robin singing its wistful autumn song incredibly quietly from deep in this bush. I've seen robins in the past singing with their beaks closed. Wonder why I can't find reference to this online? 

PS I have learnt that the quiet song sung with the beak closed is called a subsong or whisper song. Easy to Google when one knows the correct term. :)