The Passenger Pigeon, Ectopistes migratorius, inhabited North America east of the Rockies traveling and breeding in flocks containing millions of birds. The maximum population before the species went into decline may have been as high as five billion.
In spite of the staggering population of Passenger Pigeons, some authorities believe that there were only about twelve flocks. The famous naturalist John James Audubon reported watching a single flock pass overhead for three days (Canadian Biodiversity). The massive flocks, as much as a kilometer and a half wide (a mile wide) and 480 kilometers (three hundred miles) long, blocked the light of the sun.
What Did the Passenger Pigeon Look Like?
We have only illustrations and descriptions, and preserved birds in museums, to tell us what the Passenger Pigeon looked like. The bird was about thirty centimeters (twelve inches) long—about the size of the familiar Mourning Dove—with a dark grey back, slate grey head, and a wine red breast. The eye was scarlet.
Passenger Pigeon Migration
As the scientific name suggests, Ectopistes migratorius was a migratory species. Flocks moved north each spring, breeding mostly in what is today southern Canada—southern Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, and Nova Scotia. When winter approached, they returned to the Southeastern United States
Passenger Pigeon Breeding Colonies
Passenger Pigeons fed mostly on tree nuts in the summer—acorns, beechnuts, and chestnuts—and they located their breeding colonies in forests where nut producing trees grew in abundance. The largest breeding colony ever recorded contained over 130 million birds and covered an area of almost two thousand square kilometers (750 square miles).
Breeding pairs built nests of twigs in trees and produced one egg (sometimes two). The pair shared the tasks of incubating eggs and feeding young for about two weeks, then they abandoned the nest, leaving the fledgling to flutter to the ground and learn to fly on its own. Pairs sometimes raised two broods in a single breeding season.
The last known breeding colony was located near the Great Lakes in the 1890s.
Extinction—What Happened to the Passenger Pigeon?
The enormous numbers in Passenger Pigeon flocks made a good defense against natural predators such as hawks and foxes, but it made the birds especially vulnerable to unsustainable harvesting by people. They were shot for food and for sport, and shipped to cities by the thousands. Hunters shot them as they flew over, and trapped them in the wild. People tracked the movement of flocks and relayed the information by telegraph. In breeding colonies, people used poles to knock juveniles out of the nest or burned the trees. Both colonists and Native Americans ate the birds. Passenger Pigeons were even used as food for hogs. They were simply slaughtered.
An additional factor in the extinction of the species was habitat loss: many of the deciduous forests the pigeons relied on for food and nesting sites were cleared, making it difficult to recover, even with the minimal attempts to save them at the end of the 19th century.
The last known Passenger Pigeon was a female bird named Martha. She died in captivity in 1914.
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Pigeons and doves are the same thing.
Find out about baby pigeons.
Sources:
Firefly Encyclopedia of Birds. Perrins, Christopher ed. Buffalo: Firefly Books, 2003
"Passenger Pigeon." Natural History Notebook. CanadianMuseum of Nature (nature.ca)
"Passenger Pigeon." Chipper Woods Bird Observatory (wbu.com)
"The Passenger Pigeon." Vodicka, Klara. Canadian Biodiversity Project 2000-2001 (biology.mcgill.ca)
Rosemary Drisdelle - Rosemary Drisdelle has been published many times as a nonfiction writer and several times as a poet. Her first book, Parasites: Tales of ...
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