Dauphin Island Times

Chandler Robbins recently attended an Association of Field Ornithologists meeting at the Gulf Coast Bird Observatory. Mr. Robbins is known for his pioneering work in the field of Ornithology. He quite literally wrote the book on bird identification. His birders reference, Birds of North America: A Guide To Field Identification, is a standard among birders' worldwide.

Among Mr. Robbins' accomplisments are:

• He founded the annual North American Breeding Bird Survey, which is among the world's leading citizen-science studies of breeding bird populations.
• Mr. Robbins has written or co-authored more than 500 publications, books and ornithological studies.
• He authored the standard birders field guide for bird identification: Birds of North America: A Guide to Field Identification.
• His original research in the 1980s demonstrated the need to conserve unbroken forest lands for migratory and breeding birds.
• He was one of the first scientists to document the deleterious effects of DDT on birds.

During his visit to the conference Mr. Robbins was interviewed by the Houston Chronicle:

Ornithologist revolutionized the study of birds and their surroundings

Chandler Robbins, 88, has been called the father of modern ornithology.

He pioneered the study of bird distribution and bird migration, and is best known to four decades of birders as the senior author of Birds of North America: A Guide To Field Identification, in publication since 1966 and revised in 2001 (Golden Guides from St. Martin's Press, $15.95).

Robbins retired last year after a 60-year career at the U.S. Geological Service's Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in Maryland. Following are excerpts from my conversation with him at a meeting earlier this year of the Association of Field Ornithologists at the Gulf Coast Bird Observatory in Lake Jackson.

Q: How did you go from earning a physics degree at Harvard to ornithology?

A: I had always been interested in birds... read more