Connecticut Audubon Bird Finder for March 9, Special Edition: Passenger Pigeon

Passenger Pigeon
Ectopistes migratorius

Where to find it: Passenger Pigeons have been extinct for exactly 100 years but on March 12 Connecticut Audubon Society and the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies are presenting a talk by Joel Greenberg, author of the new book A Feathered River Across the Sky: The Passenger Pigeon’s Flight to Extinction, at Kroon Hall. The talk is free and open to the public. One or two preserved Passenger Pigeon specimens from the collection of the Yale Peabody Museum will be on display, to give you a chance to see what they looked like.

How to find it: Kroon Hall is at 195 Prospect St., New Haven. The talk starts at 7 p.m. and will be held in the Burke Auditorium, on the third floor. Parking is available on the street. RSVP to tandersen@ctaudubon.org.

What it looked like: Here’s a description adapted slightly from Wikipedia:

The Passenger Pigeon was much larger than the somewhat similarly-plumaged Mourning Dove. Physically it was adapted for speed and maneuverability in flight, with a small head and neck, long and wedge-shaped tail, and long, broad, and pointed wings. It had particularly large breast muscles that enabled it to fly for long distances. The male was about 15.4 to 16.1 inches long, while the female was slightly smaller at 14.9 to 15.7 inches in length. The long, tapering tail accounted for much of this length as it was between 6.9 and 8.3 inches long. It weighed between 9 and 12 oz. This pigeon had a carmine-red iris surrounded by a narrow purplish-red eyering. The bill was black, while the feet and legs were a bright coral red in the male, slightly duller in the female, and just a dull red in the juvenile.

The adult male had a blueish-gray head, nape, and hindneck. On the sides of the neck and the upper mantle were display feathers that had a bright violet to golden-green iridescence. The upper back and wings were a pale gray that turned into grayish-brown on the lower wings. The bird’s secondaries and primaries were a blackish-brown with a narrow white edge on the outer side of the feather. The greater and median wing-coverts were pale gray. The wing also had a small number of black spots. The back and rump were a dark blue-gray that became grayish-brown on the uppertail-coverts. The tail pattern was distinctive as it had white outer edges with blackish spots that were prominently displayed in flight. The lower throat and breast were richly pinkish-rufous and became a paler pink further down the belly. The undertail was white with a few black spots.

The adult female was browner on the upperparts and paler on the underparts than the adult male. The wings, back, and tail were similar in appearance to those of the male except that the outer edges of the primary feathers were edged in buff or rufous buff. The wings also had more spotting than those of the male. It was a grayish-brown on the forehead, crown, and nape down to the scapulars, and the feathers on the sides of the neck had less iridescence than those of the male. The lower throat and breast were a buff-gray that developed into white on the belly and undertail-coverts.

Conservation status: Extinct

This special edition of Connecticut Audubon Society Bird Finder was written by Tom Andersen. Photo by Tom Andersen/Connecticut Audubon Society, of specimens at the Yale Peabody Museum.