Passenger Pigeon (Ectopistes migratorius)

A Trip to the Field Museum

July 31, 2020 Students from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago took a class trip to the city’s Field Museum for a natural history illustration class. The students had to draw three bird heads and three birds’ feet. Junior Michelle Flitman chose first the Rufous Hornbill, a bird native to the

Time Changes All Things

March 23, 2019 Not that long ago, Passenger Pigeons filled the skies. Some flocks, with more than a billion birds, took four days to pass overhead. Aldo Leopold called the pigeon "a biological storm." Now they are extinct, gone forever from our world. But other birds remain! This spring, go out and

The Lost Bird Project

September 30, 2014 In a forest on Martha’s Vineyard, a Heath Hen struts through the brush. Columbus, Ohio, harbors a Passenger Pigeon. In Okeechobee, Florida, you can find a Carolina Parakeet. A Great Auk scans the Atlantic Ocean from atop a rock on Fogo Island, Newfoundland. A sea-going Labrador Duck rests

The Demise of the Passenger Pigeon

September 1, 2014 On September 1, 1914, Martha, the last known Passenger Pigeon, died in the Cincinnati Zoo. It’s hard to believe there were billions of Passenger Pigeons in the early nineteenth century. By 1900, there were none left in the wild. The last Passenger Pigeon became a symbol of how easily we

Passenger Pigeon, In Memoriam

May 31, 2010 The last Passenger Pigeon in the world died on September 1, 1914. What happened to these lovely long-tailed doves? Huge flocks offered easy shooting, and the birds were hunted to extinction. We now have the awareness and tools to make sure that over-harvest and loss of habitat don't happen