Alex Ritson

Tell us about the difference between yours and the European robins.

Our American robins are much larger and they are a thrush and they are closely related to your blackbirds.

And the European robin is actually a type of flycatcher.

They're from two different families of birds.

So now we need to work out how did this robin get from Europe to the North American continent?

But because this is an adult bird based on its plumage, we think that when it was migrating, it got close to the coast in the UK and got swept up in a storm and then was lost at sea and found refuge, this resourceful robin, on a ship that was heading across the Atlantic and then made port in Montreal.

That's a common way that lost birds out at sea get to make it.

They find some kind of man-made structure they can take a rest on.

And that's how we think it must have gotten to our side of the Atlantic.

I've heard that it possibly could have been a cargo ship, not a people ship.

Not a cruise ship, yeah.

What's going to happen to that, Robin?

It'll just live its days out in Montreal now.

It's not going to get back to Europe, presumably.

That's right.

It's really unlikely for the bird to make it back to Europe.

And so what happens with vagrant birds like the European robin that we have in Montreal is they just tend to disappear at some point.

So these birds can live up to eight years and we hope we get to keep seeing it for a lot longer.

Evolutionary ecologist Maggie McPherson.

Still to come in this podcast, the ultimate I haven't done my homework excuse.