Robins will flock to your garden if you do this 1 task in November

This winter, robins will massively appreciate you performing this one small gesture. It could mean the difference between life and death.

Apart from seeking food and water, our charming red-breasted friends are also searching for safe and warm places to rest.

It turns out that protecting them from predators and harsh weather is simpler than you'd think.

All it takes is putting up a simple bird box or two. As well as saving a robin's life, they make for excellent Christmas gifts, and you can even make your own.

Making sure to put them up before Christmas, home gardener Foxy explains to his followers on TikTok, that while there's not a lot to do in his small December garden, "what we must do is look after our wildlife friends that come and visit us."

His own boxes have clearly been a hit with the local birds-and not just the robins.

Explaining that "last year we had a family of blue tits in our blue tit box", his family were lucky enough to witness blue tits cleaning up all the aphids from their garden's roses.

He finds that his boxes are "nice and protected" due to the wild blackberry bramble he's grown on the fence. And while blue tits prefer a box with a single hole at the front, robins like an open-fronted one.

Grabbing his own robin box, he recommends,

"If, like me, someone asks you what you want for Christmas and you haven't got a clue"

"A great present is to get them to buy you a bird box."

"Or even better, make one."

He explains that the box, which was made by his son, was "ever so simply made".

And adds that robins like an open-fronted box so they can come and fill it full of moss, leaves, and twigs.

With box and drill in hand, as he's about to put the box up on the trellis above his garden fence, Foxy emphasises that it's really important to get the boxes up as soon as you can so that they can weather in. And it's important that they are high up so that the cats can't get to them.

Nestboxweek.com adds that, as well as cats, open-fronted boxes are at greater risk of being plundered by predators such as Magpies and Grey Squirrels, and recommends hiding them behind shrubs or simply fixing them to a high wall. A stiff wire guard can also help in front of the entrance, but the gaps need to be large enough for the parent birds to enter freely.