Nevermore
Page 9
Myron Swenk also noted: “In the Midwest states the fields where they were known to gather were patrolled regularly and scanned with binoculars. Sometimes a gunner would put himself in a line of flight where he had only to shoot one bird from a flock to cause the remaining birds to circle again and again until most or all had been shot. He then waited for the next flock.”
The vast migratory flocks of Eskimo Curlew had virtually vanished everywhere by 1900. The last birds were sighted and shot in Nebraska in 1911. The last record of the appearance of Eskimo Curlews in the state of Massachusetts was on August 28, 1929 when they appeared on a dinner table at a hotel at Schoodic Point.
The birds last seen in South America were shot in 1925. Less than a dozen sightings of individuals were recorded over the next century, and many of these have proven to be similar curlew-like species. The last confirmed sighting was in 1963. The last “possible” sightings of more than a single bird were in Texas in 1981 and Kendall Island, Northwest Territories, in 1985.
CRY OF THE CURLEW
Eskimo Curlew – 1985
1.
Knud Rasmussen among the Inuit
Claimed the word for poem
Was Anertsa, meaning “a breath”
Neither speech nor song
But fixed musical diction
A flow of beautiful smooth words
Recited in a low voice
Delivered at a moderate pace
A crystallized form of natural language
That must be worked and shaped
As smoothly and carefully as soapstone
Word images and word charms
Polished like walrus ivory
Old pieces are learned from the elders
They are passed round and admired
Like fine carvings or well-made weapons
But do not use them too often
Do not wear them out
These charms were made for protection
Against disease, against the evil effects
Of shooting stars, of cunning foes, of envy
When death occurs, strict mourning taboos
Are observed, but when the taboo is lifted
The bereaved ones use these charms
Murmuring them each to the other
And each to those now gone
2.
Rasmussen also records another Inuit word
For poem: Taigdlia, meaning “to name”
There have been 40 common names
For the Eskimo Curlew
One Inuit name meant “Swiftwing”
A Cree meant “Sweetgrass”
An Abnaki name meant “Beaked One”
Many other names were made
In imitation of their various cries
Among the Inuit they were called
Pi-pi-pi-uk, Tura-Tura and Ak-ping-ak
To the Cree Wee-kee-me-nase-su,
Wee-kee-me-new, We-Ke-wa-ne-so
3.
This recitation of their many names
Links them together like prayer beads on a rosary
Grants the passage of their many souls
Across that Other World’s continents
In the outports of Labrador
They were the Gallou Bird and the C’lew
Among the Québécois
They were Corbigeau des Esquimaux
While the farmers of Ontario
Called them Little Sicklebills
Market hunters named them Doughbirds
And Futes in New England and New York
And Prairie Pigeons in the American West
The Islanders of the Caribbean greeted them
As Wood Snipe, Chittering and Shivering Curlew
While to the Latinos of Venezuela and Columbia
They were known as Zarapito esquimal
In Uruguay as Chorlo polar
And Chorlo campino
In the pampas of the Argentine
4.
So this poem is my word charm,
Smooth and polished as I can make it
Let us hear your names again:
Little Sicklebill, Sweetgrass, Swiftwing
And your voice carried
Like your wings on the north wind:
Pi-pi-pi-uk, Tura-Tura
Wee-kee-me-nase-su
Wee-kee-me-new
We-Ke-wa-ne-so
THE GOLDEN AGE
FIRST WATCH 9 P. M. COMPLINE
GIANT WHITE SWAMPHEN – 1830 – Porphyrio albus
Surgeon Arthur Bowes – 1788
Ship’s Log: Lady Penrhyn , Lord Howe Island, Tasman Sea
I could not help but picturing to myself the Golden Age as described by Ovid – to see Fowls and Coots and Reels walking totally fearless and unconcerned in all parts round us so we had nothing more to do than stand a minute or two and knock down as many as we pleased. If we missed them they would never run away. The Pidgeons also were as tame and would sit upon the branches till you might go and take them off with your hands. Many hundreds of all sorts together with Parrot and Paroquets, Magpies and other Birds were caught and carried on board our ship with the Charlotte.
The Lord Howe Island Giant Swamphen – also known as the White Gallinule – was just one of over a hundred species of birds that inhabited this isolated island in the Tasman Sea between New Zealand and Australia. No human had set foot on this small island (measuring five miles by one mile) and its tiny satellite islet. Indeed, its avian inhabitants had no contact with any sort of mammals (except bats) and no predators of any sort. However, everything changed on 13 March 1788, when the British ship HMS Supply arrived with the Scarborough, Lady Penrhyn and Charlotte, and the island was named Lord Howe, in honour of the First Lord of the Admiralty.
The red-billed, white-feathered and flightless Lord Howe Island Giant Swamphen was the largest representative of its family of “Coots and Reels” (that is: Coots and Rails of the Rallidae family) in Polynesia. Being large, prominent and unafraid of humans, it rapidly became the island’s first and most obvious candidate for extermination. It is known from only three existing skin specimens and two illustrations. Two were made on that first encounter in 1788 by Thomas Watling and John White; and by George Raper on a second visit in 1790. The Giant White Swamphen was certainly extinct by 1830.
Captain Thomas Gilbert – 1788
Ship’s Log: Charlotte , Lord Howe Island, Tasman Sea
Several of these Birds I knocked down, and their legs being broken, I placed them near me as I sat under a tree. The pain they suffered caused them to make a doleful cry which brought 5 or 6 dozen of the same kind to them and by that means I was able to take nearly the whole of them.
Early European observers never seemed to tire of their own amazement at the tameness of birds which had never before seen men. Yet their reactions to such unwariness were always predictably and brutally the same. This kind of unbridled slaughter of huge numbers of the entirely tame birds by the crews of ships which made regular stops on voyages out of Australia’s Sydney Harbour resulted in the dramatic reduction of the once abundant bird populations on this small island. There were once well over a hundred bird species on the island; most were vagrant or migrating species that existed elsewhere. However, a dozen endemic species had nowhere else to go, and eight of these are now extinct; the other four are critically endangered. The Giant Swamphen in 1830, Lord Howe Island Blue Pigeon (Columba vitiensis godmanae) in 1853, and the Red-Fronted Green Parakeet (Cyranoramphus novaezelandiae subflavescens) in 1869 were the first to be exterminated.
These first ships were part of one of the world’s greatest sea expeditions: the First Fleet of 11 ships that on 13 May 1787 sailed from Britain to establish the first European colony in New South Wales, Australia. A naval escort consisting of the flagship HMS Sirius and the armed tender HMS Supply accompanied six convict transport ships (including two former slave ships) and two food transport ships. The journey of over 24,000 km of the 11 ships and 1400 people travelled 252 days without loss of a s
hip and fewer than 70 deaths – considering the conditions – was something of a triumph of the tactical planning and navigational skills of Captain (later Admiral) Arthur Phillip. The fleet landed at Botany Bay on 18 January 1788, just 18 years after Cook’s first landing; but finding this unsuited to settlement sailed into what Phillip described as “the finest harbor in the world, in which a thousand sail of the line may ride in the most perfect security.” He named it Sydney Harbour in honour of the British Home Secretary, Lord Sydney. There Phillip established the first British settlement in Australia on 26 January 1788 – now annually celebrated as Australia Day.
Dr. James Foulis – 1847
Resident’s Journal , Lord Howe Island, Tasman Sea
There are but few birds that belong to this island – the only valuable kind being a large pigeon.
For half a century, Lord Howe Island was a stopping-over place on the journey between Sydney and Norfolk Island. It also was used by whalers for water and food. A small settlement of three men with Maori wives and two children was established in 1834, subsisting on trade with passing ships. In 1851, during Dr. James Foulis’ stay on the island, there was a population of only sixteen colonists.
Just how vulnerable flightless birds can be to human incursion was dramatically demonstrated by the case of New Zealand’s Stewart Island Wren (Xenicus [Traversia] lyalli). At the northern tip of New Zealand’s South Island, the one mile square wooded Stephens Island had a human population of exactly one. The following is a British Ornithological Society Report published in 1895: “At a recent meeting of the Ornithologist’s Club in London, the Hon. W. Rothschild, the well-known collector, described this veritable rara avis, specimens of which he had obtained from Mr Henry Travers of Wellington, who, we understand, got them from the lighthouse-keeper at Stephens Island, who in his turn is reported to have been indebted to his cat for this remarkable ornithological ‘find’. As to how many specimens Mr Travers, the lighthouse-keeper and the cat managed to secure between them we have no information, but there is very good reason to believe that the bird is no longer to be found on the island, and as it is not known to exist anywhere else, it has apparently become quite extinct. This is probably a record performance in the way of extermination. The English scientific world will hear almost simultaneously of its discovery and its disappearance.”
Another endemic New Zealand bird species was also rapidly extinguished in an equally arbitrary manner. The Huia (Heteralocha acutirostris) was a totally unique and beautiful bird with long black and white tail feathers which were traditionally only worn by Maori Chiefs. A hat with Huia feathers was presented to the future George V of England on a royal visit in 1900. The result was an immediate European craze for Huia feathers. A brief seven years later, in 1907, the Huia was declared extinct. In 2010, a single Huia feather sold at auction for NZ $8,000.
Alan McCulloch – 1921
Birds of Lord Howe Island , Tasman Sea
This paradise of birds has become a wilderness and the quietness of death reigns where all once was melody. The very few birds remaining are driven from their nests by rats, and their eggs eaten.
The June 1918 grounding of the SS Makambo at Ned’s Beach allowed black rats onto the island previously protected by an anchorage which only allowed landing by small boats. With the wreck of the Makambo, the last pockets of the island’s endemic bird populations – already critically endangered through hunting and habitat destruction from humans and introduced goats, pigs and cats – suffered their final fatal blow. Within 2 to 7 years, the Doctor Bird or L. H. I. Vinous-tinted Blackbird (Turdus xanthopus vinitinctus) in 1920, the L. H. I. Big Grinnel Flycatcher (Gerygone igata insularis) in 1920, the L. H. I. White Eye (Zosterops strenua) in 1923, the Rainbird or L. H. I. Fantail Warbler (Ripidura fuliginosa cervina) in 1924, and the L. H. I. Red-Eye Starling (Aplonis fuscus hullianus) in 1925 – all joined the Swamphen, Green Parakeet and Blue Pigeon on the list of extinct species from this tiny island.
As mentioned, the remarkable Giant White Swamphen was a member of the Rallidae family, which has a 70 million year old ancestral line, and consists of Rails, Crakes, Coots and Gallinules: the order Gruiformes, which include Bustards and Cranes. This order is largely made up of ground-feeding, ground-nesting, walking birds that rarely fly, and many are today critically endangered: especially on remote Pacific isles. Besides the Lord Howe Island Giant Swamphen, at least ten other Pacific Island Rails are known to have become extinct: the Chatham Island Modest Rail (Gallirallus modestus – 1900), Chatham Island Dieffenbach’s Rail (Gallirallus dieffenbachia – 1840), Macquarie Island Banded Rail (Gallirallus philippensis macquariensis – 1880), Fiji Barred-Winged Rail (Nesoclopeus poeciloptera – 1965), Tahiti Rail (Gallirallus ecuadata – 1900), Samoan Wood Rail (Pareudiastus pacificus – 1873), Carolina Island Kittlitz’s Rail (Porzana monasa – 1850), Iwo Jima Rail (Poliolimnas cinereus brevipes – 1924), Laysan Island Rail (Porzana palmeri – 1944), and the Wake Island Rail (Gallirallus wakensis – 1945).
Introduced cats, pigs, goats and rats were frequently the reasons for the final extinction of Rail species on small islands. The Laysan Island Rail suffered a similar fate to the birds of Lord Howe Island when during the Second World War a wrecked American landing craft drifted ashore and black rats escaped onto the island. The Wake Island Rail also failed to survive the war, not because of rats, but rather gruesomely because a besieged garrison of starving Japanese soldiers hunted down and ate the entire population.
OVID’S ISLAND
Giant White Swamphen – 1830
“It was in the murderous age of iron
That men spread sails before the wind
And came to live on plunder”
So it was on the Tasman Sea
When the convict ships came to this isle
Where no man had ever trod before
These iron men swiftly brought an end
To the last earthly relic of Ovid’s fragile Age of Gold
“And the quietness of death reigns
Where once was melody”
Here the pale ghost of the whistling Swamphen
Stalks the pandanus groves and palm glades
And the shades of the Rain Bird and the Fantail
The Doctor Bird, the White Eye and the Red-Eye Starling
And those many others who no longer sing
Upon the branches of the flowering white cedar
Nor tremble as the sea wind blows upon the petals
Of the wedding lily or the mountain rose
THE FEATHERED GODS
SECOND WATCH 10 P. M. COMPLINE
HAWAIIAN OAHU O-O – 1837 – Moho apicalis
Captain James Cook – 1779
The Third Voyage of Captain James Cook , Hawaii
The islanders have another dress appropriated to their Chiefs, and used on ceremonious occasions, consisting of a yellow feathered cloak and helmet, which, in point of beauty and magnificence, is perhaps nearly equal to that of any nation in the world. These feathered cloaks are made of different lengths, in proportion to the rank of the wearer, some of them reaching no lower than the middle, others trailing on the ground. The inferior Chiefs have also a short cloak, resembling the former, made of the long tail-feathers of the cock, the tropic and man of war birds, with a border of the small red and yellow feathers, and a collar of the same. Others again are made of feathers entirely white, with variegated borders. These feathered dresses seem to be exceedingly scarce, appropriated to persons of the highest rank, and worn by the men only.
Lt. James King of the HMS Discovery later added to this account with a passage describing Cook’s welcome by the Hawaiians in Kealakekua Bay on 26 January 1779: “The next day, about noon, the king, in a large canoe, attended by two others, set out from the village in great state. Their appearance was grand and magnificent. In the first canoe was Terreeoboo and his chiefs, dressed in their richest feathered cloaks and helmets, and armed with long spears, and daggers; in the second, came the venerable Kaoo, the
chief of the priests, and his brethren, with their idols displayed on red cloth. These idols were busts of gigantic size, made of wicker-work, and curiously covered in the small feathers of various colours, wrought in the same manner with their cloaks. Their eyes were of large pearl oysters… . As soon as I saw them approaching, I ordered out our little guard to receive the king; and Captain Cook… arrived nearly at the same time… when the king rose up, and in a very graceful manner threw over the Captain’s shoulders the cloak he himself wore, put a feathered helmet upon his head, and a curious fan in his hand. He also spread at his feet five or six other cloaks, all exceedingly beautiful, and of the greatest value.”
The magnificent feathered cloaks and helmets that were presented to Captain Cook were eventually brought to Britain and are still held as part of the British Museum’s collection. And as Captain Cook himself recorded: “A more rich and elegant Dress than this perhaps the Arts of Europe have not yet been able to supply.”
MOLOKAI O-O – 1904 – Moho bishopi
Captain George Vancouver – 1794
‘The Discovery’ Journal of Captain George Vancouver, Hawaii
King Kamehameha was garbed in a striking yellow cloak made principally of bright yellow feathers which reached from his shoulders to the bottom of the canoe. On his head he wore a very handsome feathered helmet, and made altogether a magnificent appearance.