[Tweeters] robin extravaganza (Dennis Paulson via Tweeters)

[Anne Millbrooke via Tweeters]

John James Audubon wrote of the American Robin, “their presence is productive of a sort of jubilee among the gunners, and the havoc made among them with bows and arrows, blowpipes, guns, and traps of different sorts, is wonderful.” 

He continued, “Every gunner brings them home by bagsful, and the 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 the greater part of the day, so fast do the flocks of Robins succeed each other. They are then fat and juicy, and afford excellent eating.” 

Each time I read that passage I am struck by the historical facts. First, people routinely ate robins purchased at their  local markets. And not just robins.

They ate bobolinks, finches, larks, plovers, sparrows and other songbirds, sometimes collectively called reed-birds at the market. They skewered, roasted, broiled and stewed the birds. They baked birds in pies and served birds on toast.

Second, professional market hunters killed robins and other songbirds for those markets. This market hunting continued through the end of the century, long after Audubon’s death in 1851.

Third, hunters used many lethal weapons -- "bows and arrows, blowpipes, guns, and traps of different sorts" -- against the birds.

And fourth, robins existed in such numbers that the flocks of robins succeeded each other.

I am sorry that I will never see robins in the abundance that Audubon described. And I am quite pleased that our values have changed from robins for dinner to protecting migratory birds. 

Anne