This essay uses Clare’s interest in birds as a lens to focus its examination of the way his poetry exhibits a particular kind of attention to attention. More particularly, it explores various ways in which repetition functions in Clare’s poem, ‘The Robins Nest’. The essay argues that the tension between specifics and generalities which inevitably arises in the construction of natural history, and the gap between natural history and poetry, are significantly negotiated in ‘The Robin’s Nest’ through the poet’s use of forms of repetition. These in turn both invite the reader’s attention to the world and represent something of the quality of the poet’s attention as he makes his own observations.