Museum dioramas provide the best opportunities to see passenger pigeons as they may have looked in nature. Created in 1955, this diorama from the Bell Museum of Natural History features a background painted by the noted nature artist Francis Lee Jaques. (Courtesy of the Bell Museum of Natural History, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis)
This example of the bird’s image being used for commercial purposes was drawn by John Hintermeister (1869–1945) and copyrighted by Arm & Hammer baking soda in 1908. (From the collection of Garrie Landry)
This photo of Albert Cooper and his three live passenger pigeon decoys from around 1870 appears in Henry Paxson’s 1917 article on the species in Buck’s County, Pennsylvania. It is one of only two known photos of live passenger pigeons that do not involve the flocks kept by Whitman or the Cincinnati Zoo. (From the collection of Garrie Landry)
Buttons, the second most famous stuffed passenger pigeon, is a young female collected March 24, 1900, at Sargents, Pike County, Ohio. Schorger proclaimed this to be the last passenger pigeon collected in the wild for which there was no doubt, but he was unaware of the males taken a year later in Illinois and two years later in Indiana. Buttons is on display at the Ohio History Center in Columbus. (Photograph by Steve Sullivan)
This adult male passenger pigeon was shot on March 12, 1901, in Oakford, Illinois. It is the last wild bird known to be taken for which there is an extant specimen and for which no doubts as to provenance exist. It has been in the collection of Millikin University since 1947. A complete account of the specimen can be found in chapter 8. (Courtesy of Millikin University, Decatur, Illinois)
Original sales slip from Chicago game dealers Bond and Pearch to professional passenger pigeon netter W. C. Waterman for the receipt of two barrels of pigeons (523 birds) captured near Madison, Wisconsin. The slip is dated April 25, 1884, and represents the last shipment of pigeons ever made by Waterman. (Courtesy of the Milwaukee Public Museum)
Photograph of Martha at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History, Washington, D.C. (From the collection of Garrie Landry; photographer unknown)
A Note on the Author
Joel Greenberg is a research associate of both the Chicago Academy of Sciences Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum and the Field Museum. He has taught courses on natural history for the Morton Arboretum, Brookfield Zoo, and Chicago Botanical Garden, and is the author of Of Prairie, Woods, and Waters: Two Centuries of Chicago Nature Writing; A Natural History of the Chicago Region; and A Birder’s Guide to the Chicago Region (with Lynne Carpenter). His articles or reviews have been published in Science, Birder’s World, and Environmental History, and he is a featured blogger on the website Birdzilla. com. He cohosted a radio show on the outdoors on WKCC. A retired member of the Illinois Bar, Greenberg has received the Protector of the Environment Award (1997, Chicago Audubon Society) and Environmental Leadership Award (2004, Institute for Environmental Science and Policy, University of Illinois at Chicago).
Beyond writing A Feathered River Across the Sky, Greenberg is working with David Mrazek on creating a documentary on passenger pigeons and extinction called From Billions to None: The Passenger Pigeon’s Flight to Extinction. These projects are all major elements of Project Passenger Pigeon, an international effort which Greenberg helped bring about.
An avid birder since the age of twelve, Greenberg, his wife, and their stuffed passenger pigeon, Heinrich, reside in the Chicago area.
By the Same Author
Of Prairie, Woods, and Waters: Two Centuries of Chicago Nature Writing
A Natural History of the Chicago Region
A Birder’s Guide to the Chicago Region (with Lynne Carpenter)
Copyright © 2014 by Joel Greenberg
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information address Bloomsbury USA, 1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018.
Published by Bloomsbury USA, New York
Library of Congress cataloging-in-publication data
Greenberg, Joel (Joel R.)
A feathered river across the sky : the passenger pigeon’s flight to extinction /
Joel Greenberg.—First U.S. edition.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
eISBN: 978-1-62040-535-2
1. Passenger pigeon. 2. Extinct birds. I. Title.
II. Title: Passenger pigeon’s flight to extinction.
QL696.C6G74 2014
598.168—dc23
2013016927
First U.S. edition 2014
Electronic edition published in February 2014
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