Behind the Ironic Column

Sometimes we think humans are the only ones that binge.  But other animals do it too, especially when it’s related to food and survival.  That’s likely the original reason behind the human tendency to eat every chip in a bag of Doritos.  The food is there and you should take advantage of it lest you starve later.  This is silly reasoning for most humans, but logic isn’t always our strong suit.

In any event, the robins likely did not go through a reasoning process.  It’s been cold and wet and icy and not suitable weather for worms to be close enough to the top of the ground to dig out.  So hungry robins went looking for anything that seemed edible and, when they found it, they didn’t stop eating the holly berries until it was too late.  Not that holly berries are necessarily bad for birds — at least not in small quantities.  But these berries had been sitting on the bushes over the fall and winter and slowly fermenting.  Robins wouldn’t normally pick them for food — that’s why the berries hang on over the winter to brighten up our gray days.  But if there’s nothing else available to eat, even a fermenting berry seems pretty good.

So the bingeing robins were actually getting a dose of ethanol — not at all good for birds.  A group of them were found dead on the icy ground in the Mount Tabor neighborhood.  No obvious signs of any kind of chemical or virus.  Preliminary investigation by staff from the Audubon Society of Portland shows birds full of holly berries and seeds.  Whether the ingestion of the berries killed them, or whether it just made them too unsteady to fly or too groggy to be able to seek shelter from the icy rain, over 50 of them died. 

It’s not unusual for birds, or people, to become intoxicated.  Cedar waxwings are apparently known to become intoxicated on fermented berries, although they don’t usually eat enough to kill them.  They also tend to show this behavior in the fall when weather conditions aren’t as treacherous for a slightly stunned bird.  The robins were likely cold and hungry and they took the first available option.  They tend to hang out together in fairly large groups in the winter, so they ate together.  That accounts for the large number found close together in one neighborhood.

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