We all had Benjamin .177-caliber air rifles, and we hunted in the woods along the railroad tracks and around Burnettown Elementary, where we all went to school. That's right, we shot robins. Now, I can't defend the practice of putting holes in songbirds, and truth is, I'm a little bit ashamed of it now. But when you're a kid with an underpowered and inaccurate weapon, you need for your game to be kinda big, dumb, and slow. You need game that won't fly away if you miss with your first shot.
Robins fill that bill.
In fact, when you miss, a robin might just light on the ground and walk right up to you so that it can see what all the fuss is about. Rice birds, which are abundant back home in South Carolina, fly in a flock, and they all light in a tree at the same time. You can pick off three or four before the rest of the flock gets hip and flies off. So that's why we hunted robins and rice birds. We didn't get many squirrels.