Chandler S. Robbins
I was born in 1918 at Belmont, Mass., eldest son of Prof. Samuel and Rosa Robbins, speech and hearing experts at Emerson College of Oratory in Boston. With an early fascination for birds I contacted Frederick Lincoln, head of the National Bird Banding Office at the U.S. Biological Survey in Washington to ask if a banding permit could be issued to my Dad so I wouldn’t have to wait until I reached 21. He very kindly obliged! I received my AB in physics from Harvard in 1940 and my MS in biology from George Washington U. in 1950.
I had moved to Laurel, Md. in 1943 and married Eleanor Cooley of Beltsville in 1948. In the meantime, the Banding Office had been moved from D.C. to a new Patuxent Wildlife Research Center under the Fish and Wildlife Service in Laurel and Mr. Lincoln had invited me join his crew. Soon I was working afternoons in the Banding office, and in the mornings I was helping ornithologist Bob Stewart conduct baseline studies of birds in the various habitats within the new 2650-acre refuge. Over the next few years our studies expanded to the rest of Maryland and culminated in the publication of Birds of Maryland and D.C.
Everything changed one day when the Patuxent director announced that everyone was to stop their research and devote full time to determine the effects of DDT on wildlife populations. Bob Stewart transferred to the Northern Prairie Research Station leaving me as the resident ornithologist at Patuxent. I got together a small crew and spent about 5 years studying effects of DDT on birds and published the results in the Journal of Wildlife Management; but nobody paid any attention until our scientific editor by the name of Rachel Carson published Silent Spring.
During the next few years I was asked to work on national game bird surveys: snipe, woodcock, and Mourning Doves, and on alleviating bird hazards at the larger airports—which added up to ten winters at Midway atoll working with albatrosses. The rest of those years I was conducting bird surveys and editing Audubon Field Notes/American Birds, serving on boards and committees, or representing the U.S. in international conferences. For example, I was Secretary of the International Bird Ringing Committee which convened every four years at a different national bird-banding office.
In 1964 I saw the urgent need for a reliable national survey of breeding bird populations of non-game birds. I discussed this with Maryland and Delaware friends, had my hearing tested at the U. of Md. Hearing Lab and developed an unbiased protocol. We conducted a highly successful field test in Maryland and Delaware in 1965 after every participant had run a trial 50-stop route that I had just run to see if his hearing was comparable to mine. I showed the results to my supervisor, who gave approval for a national test. I then phoned Tony Erskine, songbird expert for the Canadian Wildlife Service, and he reported the same day that Canada wanted to participate, making the North American Breeding Bird Survey international. By 2015 we had 50 years of unbiased standardized counts from every state and province, and representing nearly every county; these are currently being analyzed.
For the next several decades I studied the causes of songbird declines as related to loss of nesting habitat—especially the loss and fragmentation of extensive forests. This study began in Maryland, then gradually extended to eastern Mexico, the West Indies, Central America, and South America. In each foreign country my team included biologists from the host nation so we could learn together what factors were limiting successful nesting and wintering of birds.
I retired from the U.S. Geological Survey at Patuxent in 2005 but still maintain my office there as a Senior Scientist with an Honorary Doctor of Science (U.Md.).
I had moved to Laurel, Md. in 1943 and married Eleanor Cooley of Beltsville in 1948. In the meantime, the Banding Office had been moved from D.C. to a new Patuxent Wildlife Research Center under the Fish and Wildlife Service in Laurel and Mr. Lincoln had invited me join his crew. Soon I was working afternoons in the Banding office, and in the mornings I was helping ornithologist Bob Stewart conduct baseline studies of birds in the various habitats within the new 2650-acre refuge. Over the next few years our studies expanded to the rest of Maryland and culminated in the publication of Birds of Maryland and D.C.
Everything changed one day when the Patuxent director announced that everyone was to stop their research and devote full time to determine the effects of DDT on wildlife populations. Bob Stewart transferred to the Northern Prairie Research Station leaving me as the resident ornithologist at Patuxent. I got together a small crew and spent about 5 years studying effects of DDT on birds and published the results in the Journal of Wildlife Management; but nobody paid any attention until our scientific editor by the name of Rachel Carson published Silent Spring.
During the next few years I was asked to work on national game bird surveys: snipe, woodcock, and Mourning Doves, and on alleviating bird hazards at the larger airports—which added up to ten winters at Midway atoll working with albatrosses. The rest of those years I was conducting bird surveys and editing Audubon Field Notes/American Birds, serving on boards and committees, or representing the U.S. in international conferences. For example, I was Secretary of the International Bird Ringing Committee which convened every four years at a different national bird-banding office.
In 1964 I saw the urgent need for a reliable national survey of breeding bird populations of non-game birds. I discussed this with Maryland and Delaware friends, had my hearing tested at the U. of Md. Hearing Lab and developed an unbiased protocol. We conducted a highly successful field test in Maryland and Delaware in 1965 after every participant had run a trial 50-stop route that I had just run to see if his hearing was comparable to mine. I showed the results to my supervisor, who gave approval for a national test. I then phoned Tony Erskine, songbird expert for the Canadian Wildlife Service, and he reported the same day that Canada wanted to participate, making the North American Breeding Bird Survey international. By 2015 we had 50 years of unbiased standardized counts from every state and province, and representing nearly every county; these are currently being analyzed.
For the next several decades I studied the causes of songbird declines as related to loss of nesting habitat—especially the loss and fragmentation of extensive forests. This study began in Maryland, then gradually extended to eastern Mexico, the West Indies, Central America, and South America. In each foreign country my team included biologists from the host nation so we could learn together what factors were limiting successful nesting and wintering of birds.
I retired from the U.S. Geological Survey at Patuxent in 2005 but still maintain my office there as a Senior Scientist with an Honorary Doctor of Science (U.Md.).