Built for a life on the move

“This remarkable bird differs from the dove or domesticated pigeon... Passenger pigeons in the grace of its long neck, get their name from a French word its slender bill and legs, meaning “to pass by.” and its narrow wings.” Fantastic fliers, they ―Chief Pokagon, reached speeds of 60 mph, Potawatomi and would travel thousands of miles a year searching for food, roosts and nesting grounds. Long, tapered wings A mystery and tails gave them great agility, lost to history allowing them to travel in tightly There’s much we don’t packed flocks without crashing into know about the passenger one another. pigeon. Environmental science was in its infancy All this movement was powered by during the 1800s, and few large breast muscles—ample meat scientists studied such which made them attractive targets “common” creatures. Basic for hunters. facts such as average weight or the number of nest built per year are There are over 300 different obscured by a lack of species of pigeons and records and conflicting doves in the world today. eyewitness reports. Larger than most, the passenger pigeon was a bit bigger than our common city pigeon, but with coloring and a tapered shape similar to the mourning dove. Its closest living relatives are a group As the last flocks dwindled, a few researchers studied captive pigeons. of species that includes the But such research doesn’t tell us band-tailed pigeon of the how the animal behaved in the wild.

L-R: mourning dove, common pigeon or rock dove, American West. band-tailed pigeon, and male passenger pigeon (extinct). Males were more brightly colored than females.

The most famous modern extinction was another pigeon, the dodo. Confined to a small island in the Indian Ocean, this large flightless bird was hunted to extinction by sailors and their dogs by 1662, less than 70 years after its discovery.

Photo (top): Kaisa Ryding / courtesy UMMNH / CC-BY-NC-SA-ND Photo (left): Kaisa Ryding / courtesy UMMNH / CC-BY-NC-SA-ND Photo (right): J. G. Hubbard / Wisconsin Historical Society / PD-US Image (bottom): Roelant Savery / The Natural History Museum, London / PD-1923