Feathered friends and gull-winged cars | UK News

A man’s remarkable friendship with a robin on the shores of Lough Neagh has proved a viral hit.

Henry the Robin began visiting Tom McElhone just over a year ago in the workshop where he restores DeLorean cars.

Videos of his visits posted on social media by Tom’s son have attracted “millions” of views, making him possibly the most famous robin in the world.

For Tom, “it’s amazing the amount of people who are reaching out with a very common thread of a connection with these little creatures”.

With songbirds in decline across Europe, he said it is important to “cherish” moments like this.

It all began as a way of keeping in touch with his family.

His wife is American, and their children are around the world.

When Henry began visiting the workshop, Tom recorded him and sent the video to his son, who “put it on Instagram, a technology that I know nothing of”.

Word quickly spread.

“Henry has now got two million views on Instagram, so he’s world famous.”

Tom runs his DeLorean workshop as an open house for his (human) friends.

That means it can be noisy, crowded with people, and filled with smoke from machinery as he restores the classic gull-winged cars.

He was surprised when Henry “started hanging out, just following me around the workshop”.

He began by offering the bird some food, and Henry repaid him by singing.

“It’s amazing just how much time he spends in the workshop here at this time of year, just hanging out,” said Tom.

“He’ll sit over in the corner and practise his song while I’m messing around with something, or he gets on with his life and I get on with my life.

“Yeah, we co-habit quite well as friends.”

Tom has suffered some “quite serious illnesses” over the years, leading to him giving up full-time employment.

“When I’m lying in a hospital bed with tubes coming out of everywhere, feeling sorry for myself, I move myself to moments like this, where this little guy is willing to spend the time with me and giving me a little solace when I’m not feeling so good.”

He enjoys the different songs Henry quietly sings while he is in the workshop.

“He does it by throat-singing and he controls the volume of his song with opening and closing his beak.

“So when he’s throat-singing, he’s actually practising songs that he’ll sing later on in the garden.”

Henry’s “very gregarious” nature enlivened the darker days of last winter in the workshop.

But when Spring arrived this year, Henry left.

Tom feared the worst for his newfound friendship.

“I would see him out in the trees and the bushes singing, but he would not come near me, not even for his favourite food, mealworms.

“So I thought he was gone – that was it – I thought our relationship was over.”

Then the colder weather returned, and with it, Henry.

“About a month ago, lo and behold, Henry picks up exactly where he left off, as if nothing had happened, back on my knee singing and back in the workshop.

Tom described Henry as “a gift of nature”.

Now, the little performer arrives most mornings, just after Tom opens the shed doors.

Henry will flap his wings when he wants to be fed, a signal Tom has learned to recognise.

His advice to anyone else hoping to attract a feathered friend?

“It’s surprising what a little mealworm will do for a relationship.”

Songbirds across the UK have declined by more than 40 million in the past five decades, according to the State of Nature report.

Tom said statistics like those make his friendship with Henry and their connection with people around the world all the more important.

“To connect with a single little bird like this, and to reach out where millions of people have seen it and related to it and commented on it – there is still an inner sense in us that we do connect to nature.

“And we should connect to nature.”

Growing up on the shores of Lough Neagh left Tom with an abiding love for the natural environment.

“I remember as a child, I walked in the Lough, I swam in the Lough, I drank out of the Lough, I worked in the Lough and my family of generations before me did the same.

“Our ancestors would be appalled at the condition that we have left the space in, in such a short time.”