Back in the day, it was called “bird watching,” and conjured up images of slightly eccentric, late middle-aged men and women in tweeds and sensible shoes who were laden down with bird books and binoculars and who enthusiastically tramped around parks and woods in excited and talkative groups. Now it”™s called “birding,” and about the only thing that”™s survived are the bird books and binoculars. And now you don”™t even have to tramp around in the woods to find birds; you can sit comfortably at the kitchen table and watch them out the window as they gather at the backyard feeder.
“The most exciting thing is to see the different species of birds you”™re bringing into your yard,” said Margaret Robbins, co-owner with her oldest son, Phillip, of Wild Birds Unlimited birding store in Brookfield. The birds at the feeder “become old friends,” she said, and they help accentuate the seasons ”“ robins and goldfinches in the spring, evening grosbeaks in the winter. “Cardinals are around all year, but there”™s nothing like seeing a red cardinal against a tree full of snow.”
There”™s no end to the potential visitors at the feeder, she said. “We have well over 300 species around here.” And while Robbins is very keen about attracting as many of those species as possible to her yard ”“ seven feeders dot the family”™s property in Danbury “and we have some incredible birds, some really great birds” flocking to them ”“ she”™s also very keen about attracting birders to buy the feeders and the feed in the first place.
“One of the things I missed when we first moved up here (from White Plains, N.Y.) was a store where I could get first-quality fresh feed and talk to people who knew what I was talking about and shared my passion,” she said. “I couldn”™t find people with the birding experience and love for birds that I had.”
Since she couldn”™t find such a birding store in northern Fairfield County, she and her son opened one in June. And even though the summer months are typically slow for the birding industry, “we have more than 150 customers signed up to receive our newsletter, and more who just prefer to come in and make their purchases anonymously,” she said. “That”™s very encouraging.”
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Too young to retire
Robbins spent most of her life in nearby Westchester County, N.Y., growing up in Yorktown Heights where her dad passed along to her his love of the outdoors and of birds. “He loved to be outdoors, to garden, to build things outside,” she said. “We used to always feed the birds; he and I really got into it. It was a great thing to share with him because my other sisters weren”™t into it.”
She attended Berkeley College in White Plains and Pace University in Pleasantville, N.Y., but “didn”™t finish my last year at Pace because my husband and I got pregnant.” Her truncated college career resulted in “an associate”™s degree in, believe it or not, business administration,” not anything to do with birds or nature.
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Before she married and until Phillip was born, she was office manager for the Westchester County Cooperative Extension Service in White Plains, then happily became a stay-at-home mom for about 13 years until 1998, when she worked as an office manager for a nuclear cardiology practice in White Plains. Two years later “I had a mid-life crisis,” she said, laughing. “I just decided that I had been home all those years and it was time for me to do something for myself.”
She became office manager, store manager and gallery curator at the Audubon Society in Greenwich in 2000, staying there for the next six and one-half years. “Working for a nonprofit, you wear a lot of hats,” she said. “I was the manager, the buyer, the merchandiser. I did everything. To choose products and then see people actually liking them and wanting to use them, to be able to share my love of birding with other people was absolutely fun.”
Then, last September, Robbins husband, Jack, decided to retire and wanted them to travel. “We both decided I would quit my job and we”™d go traveling,” she said. “We were traveling like one week out of every month,” but those nontravel times quickly wore thin. “I was just too young to retire,” the 52-year-old Robbins said.
That”™s when Phillip suggested the two of them open a birding store. She had already passed along her father”™s love of birds and nature to her son. “By the time Phillip was 5, he was able to identify almost 100 birds on sight,” Robbins said.
Now, he had a Bachelor of Science degree in environmental and forest biology from Fairfield University, had been an AmeriCares education intern at a Maryland zoo and a veterinarian technician in Maryland and Ridgefield. “He had worked with me a lot at the Audubon store when he was in high school and college, and knew that I always loved that and that now I was bored,” she said. “I really started to think about a store, and said, ”˜OK, lets see what”™s out there.”™”
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Books and binoculars
“Our first decision was to just open a store of our own or to purchase a franchise operation,” Robbins said. “There were a lot of benefits to opening a franchise. We were not reinventing the wheel, pretty much everything is laid out for you, you”™re working with people who have opened many other stores, and I was familiar with Wild Birds Unlimited from working in the field and knew they had an excellent reputation.”
After a few months of homework, the two entrepreneurs decided on the franchise and began looking for a store site, settling on a small strip shopping center on the northern fringe of Federal Road ”“ the several-mile-long, heavily traveled concentration of retail outlets that begins in Danbury and stretches just beyond the bird store.
The 1,700-square-foot Wild Birds Unlimited store is stocked with more than 50 different types of bird feeders, “fresh bird feed with prices not far out of line with any other store,” pole systems that can carry up to seven different feeders, nature gifts, jewelry and, of course, those bird books and binoculars.
“We”™re here to encourage and enhance people”™s enjoyment of birds and nature in general,” Robbins said, including offering a beginning bird-feeding class at the Brookfield Library. “You really cannot get the knowledge we have in any other store. And it”™s a great place to come for gifts, even if you”™re not a bird enthusiast.”
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