The Godfather Of His Flock

At 85, America's Top Birder Is Still Guiding People to Ornithology

Chandler S. Robbins steered his government-issue sedan to a pull-off near a one-lane bridge that crosses the muddy Patuxent River near Bowie.

"Let's see what we can find," he said, grabbing a clipboard. As he closed the car door, he began dissecting a woodland chorus of trills and whistles after an early morning rain.

"Indigo bunting, right here. Yellow-throated vireo, over here," he said, pointing with a pen toward the dripping trees. He fiddled with the hearing aids nestled in his ears. "They're proclaiming their territory." A noisy cardinal tried to dominate the conversation as Robbins marked his list.

He made his way along a footpath deeper into woods, deftly navigating mudpuddles, gnarled tree roots, overhanging branches. A low chirruping started, but he dismissed it. "I didn't come to hear frogs. I came to hear birds."

America's foremost birder is still tramping the woods at age 85. And across the country, a multitude of people is following in his steady footsteps, identifying birds from a guide he edited, counting birds for studies he designed and pursuing conservation projects drawn from his research.

"I don't think there's anyone living today who has done as much as Chan has for bird conservation," said Columbia resident David H. Pardoe, who serves on the board of directors of the National Audubon Society and who nominated Robbins for two national conservation awards.

During his long career, Robbins has helped stoke a national passion for birding, now the second most popular recreational activity among Americans, drawing 46 million people in 2001, according to a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service study.

His early bird surveys helped document the far-reaching effects of DDT and contributed to the U.S. ban on the pesticide in 1972, said Steve R. Runnels, president and chief executive of the American Birding Association. Those surveys also ushered in "citizen science," using volunteers to systematically collect large amounts of data to plan and carry out conservation programs.

"He's like the godfather," said Doug Ryan, a federal biologist for the wildlife service.

This founding father of modern ornithology reports to work as he has for 59 years at the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in Laurel, where he's the center's longest-serving employee. When the center celebrated its 65th birthday last week, Robbins, dressed in a colorful print shirt of flying ducks, cut the cake next to center director Judd Howell, whose first bird guide was a book Robbins edited.

Robbins rejects the idea of retirement.

"I don't think I want to lead a life of leisure," he said. "There is so much that needs to be done."

Robbins is traveling across Maryland to tally birds for the Maryland-D.C. breeding bird atlas, a survey he introduced to the United States in the 1970s that is now conducted in most states. More than 500 volunteers have joined Robbins in the five-year study, coordinated through the Maryland Ornithological Society, to map where birds are breeding in every corner of the state and the District.

The undertaking, in its third year, has drawn first-timer Denise Ryan, who spends evenings and weekends peering through binoculars on the grounds of university campuses, McMillan Reservoir and Rock Creek Park.