Prior to 1980, most reports of avian frugivory were made in the tropics. From 1979–1981, a number of studies recognized the importance of fruits to fall temperate assemblages of passerine migrants. The earliest of these field studies were conducted in the fall of 1974 in upstate New York by Robert Rybczynski & Donald K. Riker and separately by John W. Baird in New Jersey, each documenting ingestion of fruits in stands of fruit-bearing shrubs by mixed species assemblages dominated by migrant white-throated sparrows.
