Chapter 7: Death’s Ruthless Race

At twenty, the condor who had soared nearly half a million miles over his mountainous range was tired. He had lived seven thousand and three hundred days, he had pressed himself to the bodies of two females, one of them his own offspring, and had produced a desperately needed crop of successful chicks. He was immortal. He had known peace, and he had known fear. He had cheated death more times than we can know and had thereby protected his potential, keeping it from harm until it was used up. His had been a successful life and he had lived it in the sun.

Right now (i.e., in 1976) in Southern California, a priceless piece of American heritage is being swept along the river of extinction and into the gulf of oblivion. Pushed into the deadly waters by obscenities of human self-centeredness, the magnificent California Condor is finding the unnatural pressures far different from the air currents that his nine-foot wingspan was meant to ride, and he is drowning.

In 1947, after years of declining numbers brought on by our thoughtless land-use, our greedy egg-collecting, our inadvertent poisoning and our outright shooting, only about sixty California Condors remained alive on this planet. By 1996 there were only fifty. Even now, with heavy protection and ample food supplies, this living relic—a contemporary of the legendary saber-toothed tiger—is barely able to hold its own against the downsweeping current, much less flounder to safety onshore. Why, now given the chance, can’t the species recover? Why can’t condors quickly replenish their decimated population and soar once again far above the waters that threaten them?

Unhappily the answer lies largely within the condors’ own physiology: their reproductive potential is nothing more than meager. Although they can expect to live some twenty years, baby condors take five whole years of painstaking development before breeding for the first time. And even then the female lays only one egg every other year. Contrast these statistics with those of the American Robin who—with a potential lifespan of ten or twelve years—can breed a year after hatching and then lays three or four eggs, two or three times a nesting season. There is no comparison.

A given pair of condors can at most fledge ten babies in their lifetime; a pair of robins can theoretically fledge close to a hundred. But the real biological power of the robin is not fully appreciated until one takes into account the potential breeding by a given pair’s own young in subsequent years. Suppose one pair annually fledges two broods of four young each, and that all the young survive and reproduce at the same rate. Assuming no mortality, the original pair will have 19.5 million descendants by the end of their ten-year life-span. (Comparable calculations for the condor show a potential of only thirty descendants during a given pair’s lifetime.) At the end of a mere thirty years, the original pair of robins would have 1.2 billion trillion descendants! That’s quite a few Robins. So many, in fact, that according to the computations of one scientist, only one out of every one hundred fifty thousand of these birds would fit on the entire surface of the earth if they were to stand shoulder to shoulder.

The point of these hypothetical statistics is the simple but important fact that if humanity’s arrogance should ever shove the American Robin into the same river that the California Condor now finds itself, the robin would at least have the breeding potential to make a biological comeback with veritable motorboat speed. (This assumes, of course, that the species could be protected from its enemies and that enough robins were still alive to locate mates during the breeding season.)

What’s that you now say? You wonder why, given such great breeding potential, robins do not overrun our planet? Why doesn’t each redbreasted pair have almost 20 million descendants by the end of their lifetime? The answer is as easy as its implications are profound: hardly any robins survive long in Nature. Though robins have a natural longevity potential of ten years (in captivity they may live close to twenty), their average actual lifespan has been estimated at less than one-and-a-half years.

Consider these staggering statistics of robin mortality: of every hundred eggs laid each year, at least thirty never survive to hatch; and of the seventy nestlings that do hatch, thirty die before fledging. In other words, for every 100 Robin eggs, only forty birds live to leave the nest. The other sixty are obliterated during their first three-and-a-half weeks of existence. How many robins live as long as one year? About seven out of a hundred. How many live three years? One or two, out of a hundred. How many robins live five years? Only about one out of every four hundred—that’s how many!

Death. Death pursues every robin, from embryo to nestling to fledgling to adult. In this classic race of survival, propagation waits at the finish-line but precious few contestants get there in time. Precious few robins live to breed even once, much less repeatedly. That’s why our planet is not overrun. In a moment, we’ll see the many ways death can win this ruthless race. But first, there’s an interesting point to be made.

Many people discourage, or even condemn, the rearing in captivity of a “wild” animal. They say a wild animal is meant to be free. But what price freedom? With conscientious care, pet robins can live ten years; indeed, one methuselahn redbreast lived a full seventeen years under a kind lady’s care, and “sung as well and looked as sprightly at that age as ever” but alas, finally fell into the fatal fangs of a cat. A robin free in Nature, on the other hand, will most likely never see its first birthday.

Are robins “happier” in Nature than out of it? I doubt it. Oh perhaps when sun shines, worms wiggle and berries ripen. But what about when lightning cracks, cold wind howls and rain plummets down? And what about the care and affection that a human can share with a pet? The ornithological literature is sprinkled with heart-warming reports of wild birds kept as pets, which appeared to be perfectly contented and satisfied with their circumstances. Some animals, to be sure—because of innate disposition or age or previous experience—cannot be satisfactorily brought into one’s home. They mope and withdraw, they become irritable and vicious, or they just plain die. But such is not a universal outcome of captivity. Robins reared as nestlings frequently seem to adapt to the situation, to enjoy their human companions, and to live long full lives if properly cared for.

All of this is not to advocate widespread and systematic removal of robins from Nature for confinement in cages. There are, in fact, federal laws prohibiting most sorts of songbird captivity. But in the context of relative longevity, the propriety of humans rearing undomesticated animals deserves at least some thoughtful revaluation.

Now, let’s look at some of the many causes of robin mortality. These causes are of two basic categories: natural and human-related.

Natural Causes of Death

Natural causes of death among Robins include disease, weather and predators. Of what consequences disease is to the robin population is difficult to assess; probably it is minimal, at least as a direct cause of death. Most territorial species—as opposed to those who live in herds or colonies—are fairly resistant to large-scale spread of contagious diseases by virtue of the self-imposed spacing of their population. Robins, despite their strong territoriality during the breeding season, would seem to forfeit this disease-limiting advantage by their periodic communal roosting in tight flocks (see Chapter 10). Still, if any serious epidemics have ever plagued robins, it’s as yet gone unnoticed by birdwatchers.

With robins—and this is true of many other wild animals as well—disease is probably more often a contributing cause of death than it is the sole cause. Sickly robins are more apt to succumb to harsh weather or be caught by predators than are healthy robins. This is of course one of the indispensable contributions that a predator makes to the welfare of the species upon which it preys—the quick removal of diseased individuals who might otherwise spread their affliction to conspecifics. Thus it is not only the raptor-lover who says, “Save the hawk, save the owl!” It is the robin-lover as well.

Unlike disease, weather can often be an obvious, even spectacular cause of robin death. As pointed out in Chapter 6, nestlings as well as eggs can be thunderstormed from a nest, doomed to lie dying in the mud below with only the plaintive calls of their helpless parents to soothe them in that final sleep. More violent weather can kill adults almost as easily. Once after a midnight storm on Long Island, thirty-six dead robins were found on a single acre where they had been devastated while roosting the night before. One July, a tornado hit Portsmouth, Iowa, and left seventy-one robins scattered over two acres like so many russet autumn leaves. Sometimes following these local catastrophes, robins are completely eliminated from the area for the entire season. Other times, the void is quickly filled by an influx of birds from nearby localities that happened to escape the brunt of the storm. It should also be noted that despite their otherwise hardy character, robins seem to be felled more easily than some other birds; scrappy English Sparrows and hole-nesting European Starlings usually fare much better in harsh weather.

As far as natural predators go, the robin’s primary enemies include cats, dogs, squirrels, crows, jays, owls and hawks. Cats and dogs are most dangerous to young robins, those who have just fledged, still fly poorly, and spend a lot of time on the ground and in low-lying bushes. Crows, jays and squirrels attack even younger robins—those still in the nest—as well as the robin’s eggs. When parent robins find any of these nest-robbers near their young, they scold and dive-bomb until they drive the intruder away. Sometimes, though, the crime is committed before the thieves can be routed.

The diurnal hawks and the nocturnal owls prey upon young and old robins alike. Among the winged predators caught in the act of eating robins are Cooper’s Hawks, Goshawks, Sparrow Hawks, Marsh Hawks, Pigeon Hawks, Peregrine Falcons, Gyrfalcons, Horned Owls, Barred Owls, Screech Owls, and Snowy Owls (the latter occasionally coming as far south as New England). Robins may be a bit more susceptible to hawking than shier songbirds who are more reluctant to fly across open spaces where the great birds of prey can snatch them. Owls, being largely nighttime hunters, would probably not get many robins were it not for the robin’s propensity for being an early riser, early enough to cross paths with many an owl who is just about to retire for the day.

Frequently robins are fed to baby owls and hawks. Observation of twelve different nests of Cooper’s Hawks in Ithaca, New York, once revealed that the forty-two youngsters residing therein were fed seventy-nine robins before they fledged. Yet despite the fact that owls and hawks like to serve them as baby food, insolent robins have been known to nest right next door to these breeding raptors, and often with a surprising degree of safety. Why? Because many birds of prey avoid disturbances (such as those caused in the capture of protesting robins) in the immediate vicinity of their own nest.

Should the opportunity arise, robins will bravely show hostility toward those birds who prey upon them. Should a few redbreasts discover an owl at its daytime perch, they may dive-bomb (without making contact) and scream at the predator for the better part of an hour. This practice, common among small birds, is known as “mobbing.” A robin’s mobbing cry will attract not only all the other robins in the neighborhood but other species as well, and soon dozens of songbirds will be loudly venting anger toward their hated foe. Interestingly, the owl will not retaliate but merely endure the insults or, should patience fail, fly off to find another, more secluded spot to roost.

Robins will also fly at a hawk on the wing if it is carrying away one of their species in its talons. If the killer is a small bird—as is the Sparrow Hawk who only weighs 120 grams compared to the robin’s 80—the raptor may have considerable difficulty outmaneuvering the screaming pursuers as it labors with its prey. As in owl-mobbing, numerous species of songbird may join forces in harassing a hawk caught red-taloned. Kingbirds have been seen chasing a Cooper’s Hawk who had just snatched a young robin from its nest, and robins have been known to dive at a Sparrow Hawk who was menacing the nest of House Sparrows.

In addition to the above major predators, there are a few minor ones who sometimes manage to catch a robin or two. Snapping turtles have been known to eat robins, albeit ever so rarely. In fact it is only circumstantial evidence—and not eyewitness report—that earns this fierce pond predator a paragraph in our book. One summer a surprised woman in Nashville, Tennessee, found bird feathers (including those of robins) floating in her backyard lily pond. The killer’s identity remained a mystery even after flour was spread on the rocks around the pool, for this ploy only revealed the tracks of the victims as they strolled into the shallow waters to bathe and drink. Surmising that the predator was aquatic, the woman drained the pool and discovered a slightly suspicious pair of grinning snappers who were thereupon urged to vacate the premises. After that, robin casualties ceased and the case was closed.

Other enemies have been less covert in their deeds. Snakes sometimes procure adult robins, although usually only after the victims show regrettably poor judgment. More than one robin has been strangled by a small snake whose tail only moments before had appeared to be a deliciously fat worm lying seductively in the grass. Bigger snakes sometimes attack robin nests in the trees. Once in Franklin, Massachusetts, a woman and her husband were drawn to the dramatic scene of a screaming Father Robin who was “fluttering directly over a snake’s head and making every possible effort to drive him away” from an egg-filled nest. In a clear example of well-intentioned but extreme human intervention, the callous couple—instead of merely removing the snake from the vicinity—axed the poor serpent because “we felt that positive proof of the lawlessness of this one justified his death.” Lawlessness? Whose laws, I wonder.

But perhaps the most unusual case of predation upon robins—besides the snapping turtle incident—occurred in Anahuac, Texas, during the particularly cold winter of 1891. Frequent snows had cut off food supplies from many visiting migrants, among them flocks of Rusty Blackbirds. These birds soon took to attacking robins who had gathered to feed on a field that had been thawed by a warm artesian well. Though presumably novices at avian predation, the blackbirds slaughtered dozens of robins like practiced experts. After making kills, the attackers ate only the victims’ brains, leaving the bodies themselves untouched.

Human-Related Mortality

Many instances of robin mortality are unavoidable accidents, minimum prices that robins pay for living so close to humans. Cars continually take a set percentage of our wildlife, and robins are not immune to fatal collisions. In fact, since robins tend to skim along the ground during the initial part of their flights from lawn to tree, they may be a little more vulnerable to car-colliding than other birds who ascend more quickly after takeoff.

We have already mentioned that nest-building robins sometimes tangle themselves in string, and such predicaments can be fatal if the bird cannot free herself. Robins can apparently even mistake string for a worm; one bird ate twenty inches of twine and then died when it obstructed the intestinal tract. Death has also overtaken robins through means of invisible windowpanes, shocking high tension wires, and one-chance-in-a-million beanings by meteoric golfballs. But such misfortunes are rare accidents, hardly significant factors in their effects on the robin population. Of more important consequence are fatalities arising from human use of pesticides, human defense of cultivated crops, and historically, human use of robins themselves as food.

Pesticidal Poisoning

Robins have often been inadvertently killed in our chemical attacks on a variety of different enemies, such as mosquitoes, aphids and Japanese beetles. But most often and dramatically they have been cast in the role of innocent-but-injured bystanders in our battles against Dutch elm disease. This disease involves a fungus that is carried by bark beetles, who thereby spread the affliction from elm to elm. Across widespread regions of the United States, the malady has rendered groves of beautiful trees into cemeteries of ugly skeletons. In the past, our efforts to save these trees have usually centered on smothering the bark beetles with large quantities of DDT (dichloro-diphenyl-trichloro-ethane), an unselectively lethal chemical that persists in the environment for an unfortunately long time.

Wherever DDT has been used to combat Dutch elm disease, a deadly cycle has ensued whereby the potent pesticide permeates from one ecological plane to the next, with increasing concentrations of the chemical accumulating at each step. First, leaves sprayed with DDT in either the spring or summer fall in autumn to the ground where, as litter, they are munched over by earthworms. Considerable chemical concentration occurs at this level: DDT that appeared as only 5 parts per million (ppm) in the soil may increase to 30 ppm in the bodies of worms. In other words, as earthworms eat soil, the DDT—rather than passing through and out—instead accumulates in the annelids.

The process then proceeds to some earthworm predator, such as our robin. By eating DDT-packed worms, robins thereby concentrate the baneful brew in their own bodies until a fatal level is reached (from 60 to 150 pm in brain tissue). Declines in robin numbers of as much as 90 percent have been reported from many heavily sprayed localities. Even at sublethal concentrations, however, DDT may completely negate a robin’s reproductive ability (that is, induce sterility). This obviously is just as deadly a condition for the life of the species as the actual death of the individual would have been.

What’s more, these poisoned but surviving robins may be preyed upon by animals higher up on the food chain—hawks and owls, for example—and then these predators will die when the chemical becomes too concentrated in their bodies. Even dead robins can pass on the terrible toxin since their contaminated corpses may be discovered by curious cats or ravenous raccoons. Without doubt, DDT is awesome in its sphere of potential influence.

Millions and millions of elms have been sprayed in the United States, and in the process millions and millions of birds from more than a hundred different species have been fatally poisoned. Ground-feeders like our robin are particularly vulnerable to this plight—indeed, robins may account for as much as 50 percent of such avian mortality—and with little doubt the losses of redbreasts alone have climbed into the millions, including both adults and unrealized young. Accurate figures for specific localities are hard to come by, but some of the most detailed information comes from Michigan State University where initial studies were followed up in successive years.

In 1954 approximately 185 pairs of robins, or about one pair per acre, lived on a section of MSU’s East Lansing campus. By 1958, after a series of intense DDT programs to fight Dutch elm disease, only one or two pairs remained. The depleted robin ranks were partially replenished in the spring of 1959 when ten new pairs came on campus to breed, but robins still continued to die. In fact, by the end of that summer as many as fifty deaths were recorded by campus researchers.

How could fifty robins die in an area that was initially populated by only ten pairs? As campus robins succumbed to the poison, other birds from nearby areas moved in to fill the void. Thus total robin losses from DDT included not only the original breeding population but replacement populations as well. More generally it seems likely that DDT, when used at a given locality, affects many more robins than simply those who are initially living at that locality. Another related and equally important point is that even though robins may appear to survive within an area that has been sprayed with DDT, many deaths could nevertheless have occurred since replacements often cover up attrition in the original birds.

As mentioned earlier, DDT is a persistent chemical. Ten years after an application, the ground may still hold 10 to 20 percent of the original amount. Such persistence implies that robins can continue to be affected by the pesticide long after its use has been terminated. Eventually, replacement populations may cease to reinhabit the death-trap area, and in that case robins and other affected species will remain locally scarce for a long time to come. The avian vacuum that is thereby created may then be filled by species who are not restricted to a diet of worms and insects and so are not as greatly affected by DDT. Quite often these are birds that are not exactly endeared to the human heart—starlings and pigeons, for instance, who can subsist on garbage and such things fairly well. Once these new populations become established, they tend to remain; in this way, the ecological effects of DDT can even outlive the chemical itself.

The specific symptoms of DDT poisoning are blatant once chemical concentrations reach high levels. Birds lose their sense of balance and cannot fly; tremors set in, some paralysis perhaps, convulsions commence, and then finally death follows within a few hours. In the words of one first-hand observer,

I found a pair of robins who were building a nest by Bell Tower. A day later I returned to find the nest completed but the birds on the ground, unable to fly. Both were trembling and the female was near death. The male, despite all this, was trying to sing, but a sadder song was never heard.

Once trembling appears, the individual cannot be saved. Interestingly and contrary to the implication of the above quote, male robins seem to be much more susceptible to DDT poisoning than are females. In general, males die sooner, in greater numbers, and at lower DDT levels than females. This gender difference probably results from the greater fat reserves that springtime females enjoy. These reserves are capable of storing high concentrations of DDT without bodily harm; thus the fatter females can tolerate more poison than the leaner males.

Solutions to the problem? Development of disease-resistant elms and introduction of biological enemies of the bark beetle (that is, predators, parasites and pathologies) are two possibilities. A third has been the substitution of less potent pesticides for DDT; a chemical called methoxychlor kills bark beetles and yet robins tolerate it in doses that are thirty times larger than a lethal amount of DDT.

Before we leave this section on pesticidal destruction of robins, it bears stressing that DDT is not the only villain involved. Other chemicals kill too. In 1972, great numbers of robins were fatally poisoned in Dade County, Florida, by potato growers who were fighting aphids with a relatively new pesticide, Azodrin. In their enthusiastic application of this chemical cure-all to their crops, the growers inadvertently sprayed a nearby hedge of Christmasberries which, unfortunately, happen to be relished by robins. So when flocks of hungry redbreasts subsequently arrived in the area, they eagerly feasted on the berries—their last supper, as it turned out. Within three days, ten thousand robins lay paralyzed or dead. Presumably the potatoes prospered.

So pervasive has been songbird destruction associated with DDT and other pesticidal programs that almost twenty years ago one researcher was moved to warn:

The current widespread and ever-expanding pesticide program poses the greatest threat that animal life in North America has ever faced—worse than deforestation, worse than market hunting and illegal shooting, worse than drainage, drought or oil pollution, and possibly worse than all of these decimating factors combined … If [these programs] are carried out as now projected, we shall be witnesses to a greater extermination of animal life than in all the previous years of man’s history on earth, if not since glaciation profoundly altered the life of the whole Northern Hemisphere.

Crop Defense

Except for isolated instances of robin-killing (for example, by small boys armed with Christmas-gifted air rifles), humans today do not generally kill robins intentionally. The bird is, after all, a friend of good cheer, an ally against the unloved insects, and simply a nice part of Nature to be respected for its own sake. At least that is usually the case. But it goes without saying that we humans will turn upon robins should the birds dare to infringe upon our right to every speck of resource on this planet. We are Earth’s supreme creatures and might makes right.

There are numerous instances from all parts of the continent where robins have been slaughtered by the hundreds and thousands because they gathered in some specific farming locality in search of food. We will return to this topic in the next chapter when we consider the robin’s feeding habits, but for now let’s look at one specific instance where crop defense motivated robin-killing by humans. This example, a recent one, involves blueberry farmers in Canada.

Blueberries, a big crop in New Brunswick, are not a normal part of robin foodfare but are certainly acceptable to the fruit-loving birds. A blueberry conflict between farmers and robins had simmered for years but finally reached the boiling point in 1973. The confrontation was allegedly fueled by an “aggressive” pesticide program in the Maritime Provinces, an apparently successful program which greatly diminished bud worms and other insects that robins had previously depended upon for sustenance. So when their natural foods became unavailable, the birds—reluctant to starve—turned instead to the ripening blueberry crop.

Thus the conflict over blueberries became a desperate question of survival: the farmers depended on the crops for economic livelihood, the robins for biological existence. A compromise might have seemed in order. But any politician will tell you that conflicting interests between two groups is not in itself a sufficient condition for resolution via compromise; a balance of power is equally vital. And in New Brunswick, at least, the farmers held all the guns.

Blueberry growers had been killing robins under less pressing circumstances before 1973. The previous year, government permits were routinely granted to eight farmers who together killed an estimated twenty thousand redbreasts; one man shot seven thousand on his two-hundred-acre farm alone. But in 1973 many more growers applied for permits to exterminate robins on a truly massive scale, and the sorry spectre of a hundred thousand robins shotgunned each year in an annual “pest-control” program became imminent. Fortunately conservation groups in the United States as well as Canada launched a widespread “robins rather than blueberry pie” campaign to drum up public protest against the killing. And largely in response to the resulting uproar, the Canadian government subsequently denied the permit requests.

The basic problem, of course, had not been solved. The hard-worked crops of blueberry growers were still threatened. We will return to this and other dilemmas of similar sort later, and then consider possible solutions. But of present relevance is speculation on the effects that the Canadian extermination program, had it been endorsed, would have had on the robin’s population.

Obviously, many—no doubt most—American Robins never cross the Canadian border during any part of their life cycle. They hatch, migrate and breed entirely within the confines of the United States. Consequently the Canadian program—which even within that nation was relatively localized in nature—could not have by itself “endangered” the species as a whole in any direct fashion. The same cannot be said for the particular race of robins that is largely of Canadian citizenship—the Black-Backed Robin.

Still, one cannot kill fifty to a hundred thousand robins each year and not produce some depleting effects on the population. Robins are numerous but their numbers are not infinite. And besides, local killings should not be viewed as merely isolated occurrences but rather as parts of a whole battery of destructive forces exerted upon the species’s population (the California Condor, remember, was not cast in its present danger by a single folly but by a host of them). Following New Brunswick’s lead, a dozen other local pest-control programs might begin elsewhere, each destroying a hundred thousand robins annually. Or a rash of ill-conceived pesticide campaigns might suddenly spray their way across North America and poison robins from coast to coast. And in the South, where millions of robins congregate in dense flocks each winter, millions could die from an unexpected disease, some unstoppable epidemic. Suddenly, robins could be scarce. Suddenly they could be endangered. And then what would we give to reincarnate those hundred thousand individuals who had died in the blueberry fields of Canada?

In final note, I don’t mean to imply that the only reason—or even the most important reason—for not killing robins is fear for the survival of their species. This cannot be true for Turdus migratorius any more than an unnecessary war is lamentable on the grounds that it in itself constitutes a threat to Homo sapiens. No, much more fundamental values than mere species preservation are involved whenever killing occurs in the absence of absolute necessity.

Robins as Food: An Historical Digression

There is an interesting footnote to this consideration of human-related causes of robin mortality. Time was, when robins along with meadowlarks, bobolinks and numerous other songbirds, were classified as “game birds” and hunted with vigor. For a number of reasons, such slaughter was largely confined to the southern part of the United States. First, robins used to (and still do) winter in the South in incalculable flocks and so could be hunted quite easily, with economy of effort. Then, too, the old South held many poor people who saw no reason why they should remain hungry when they could readily furnish their tables with so abundant a bird. Thirdly and perhaps most importantly, southerners in the past have not held our beloved robin as close to their hearts as have more northern Americans and also Canadians. Historically, robins neither sang nor raised their young in the deep South, and these two activities probably mediate as much as anything the northerner’s great affection for the species. Instead, robins were considered by many southern communities to be a starling-type nuisance, especially when their huge flocks damaged cultivated crops.

So robins were killed without remorse. The following words describe the situation in 1841, as perceived through the eyes of a contemporary:

In all southern states, the presence of robins produces a sort of jubilee among gunners, and the havoc made among them with bows and arrows, blowpipes, guns, and traps of different sorts is wonderful. Every gunner brings them home by bagsful, and markets are supplied with them at a very cheap rate. Several persons may at this season stand round the foot of a tree loaded with berries and shoot for the greater part of a day, so fast do flocks of robins succeed each other. They are then fat and juicy, and afford excellent eating.

This passage, incidentally, did not arise from the pen of some insignificant peasant. These words of so callous a tone came from none other than John James Audubon, artist of Nature and lover of birds.

You might wonder how anyone could manage to dine on a little ol’ robin in the first place. One songbird, it is true, is hardly worth the trouble of plucking, but then neither is a single fish-egg worth serving. No, robins were prepared dozen by dozen, and a hundred eggs give you caviar. If at the turn of the last century you visited any southern marketplace—or one in Washington, Baltimore or New York for that matter—you could purchase robins “by the bunch” at a price ranging from a dime to four bits a dozen. In northern cities where buyers were more likely to hold robins in some degree of sentimentality, skewered redbreasts were sold to unknowing consumers under the guise of “rice birds” (bobolinks, who were also widely eaten, are the true rice birds). Such, then, was the fate of hundreds of thousands of robins who found their way into the markets of America and stomachs of Americans.

How were all these robins killed? With pitiful ease. Then, as still today, thousands upon thousands of robins wintered in the South and congregated nightly to sleep within relatively small areas of woods (see Chapter 10 on roosting). Densely packed among branches and sleeping soundly in the dark, the birds made simple prey. At a robin roost near Fosterville, Tennessee, the carnage transpired like this:

When a party of hunters arrived at the robin roost at night, one of them with a torch climbed a tree, and when the torch was lighted, the others with poles beat the surrounding trees. Blinded by the light, the suddenly awakened birds flew towards it and the torch bearer-seizing each one—quickly pulled off its head and dropped the body into a bag hanging from his shoulder. Thus three or four hundred birds were captured by one man in a single night. This tremendous slaughter continued for three or four winters, after which the birds abandoned the roost.

Such bloodshed took sufficient tolls on the species that contemporary ornithologists rightly worried that robins may “soon be classed among our rarer birds.” It was not until 1913 that the U.S. Migratory Bird Law attempted to shelter robins and other songbirds beneath the protective coattails of Uncle Sam. Prior to this, individual states legislated whatever protection, if any, they deemed fit. New York, for example, passed a game law in 1860 that prohibited the shooting or trapping of robins under penalty of a whopping fifty-cent fine, except during the four months of October through January. In southern states, laws against robin-killing did not pass until much later (for example, 1912 in Virginia).

Even after the federal law was enacted, it took years of difficult and often sporadic enforcement before the long-practiced customs of southern communities began to change. The following article, published in a 1931 Alabama newspaper, shows what bird crusaders of yesterday (led, incidentally, by the Audubon Society) faced in their tireless campaigns for passage and enforcement of protective legislation:

On Tuesday night a week ago, some Crenshaw citizens met at the robin roost, or “Hell’s Half Acre,” to have a bird thrashing like we boys used to have in days gone by. The game warden was made wise and he was also there, but he kept himself under cover until the boys began to thrash the birds. Then he arrested 42 persons for violating the game law and they have since pled guilty and paid fines of $15.25. They were not there for sport altogether. They were there to get some birds to eat. It is said that some of these people were being fed by the community, and among them was an old Civil War negro who was told to be down there and they would give him some birds. He was also arrested, so it is said. But the game warden says it was a violation of the Federal Game Law; that we admit, but the law is not based on common sense. At this time the Government is talking about helping our people who are hungry, and these people were after some meat for themselves and families. This law is wrong and there should be an open season on robins for they are eating out the pindar fields of this country, so it is said. The majority of our citizens do not endorse the action of the game warden.

Alas, cultural change comes slowly when national mandate finds itself confronting local sentiment.