Image of Passenger Pigeon via WikiMedia River of feathers Crossing the sky May not see it ever again Beating wings Whoosh up high May not hear that ever again A winding brown-blue cloud of Passenger Pigeons covered the sky, wings whirring in a roaring river of sound. Less than 50 years later, the last passenger pigeon fell to the ground, heart still, from her perch four inches above the ground. In the 1800s, 40% of all North American birds were Passenger Pigeons. Passenger Pigeons, or simply Wild Pigeons, were the most plentiful bird in North America by far, and were easy to shoot. Their squabs, or fledglings, were served in pigeon pies. Most people thought these social birds were protected by their numbers, until the last pigeon, Martha. Martha was bred and raised in captivity by Charles Whitman, a zoologist. He had a collection of various species of pigeons and doves that were initially kept for studying their behavior. Martha was named after George Washington’s wife, Martha Washington. One of the males Martha was kept with was named George. Whitman partnered with the Cincinnati Zoo, recognizing the Passenger Pigeon numbers were on a sharp decline. Whitman’s collection of Passenger Pigeons were the only known surviving pigeons. Martha and the males she was kept with were sent to the zoo. In 1907, Martha and the two males were the only surviving Passenger Pigeons. Attempts to breed Martha were unsuccessful, and both males died in the following years. Martha was the only Passenger Pigeon, an endling. The zoo frantically tried to find mates for her, offering $1,000 to anyone who could capture a live male pigeon. No one ever found Martha a mate, and Martha got older each year. Visitors crowded around her pen, eager to get a glimpse of the last Passenger Pigeon, who was often perched on a branch in her enclosure. What were the visitor’s thoughts when, not long before, farmers would draw their guns at the sight of thousands of birds descending upon their crops, devouring all the grain in a matter of hours? In 1911, Martha suffered an apoplectic stroke, and she was severely weakened. In the following months, worried zookeepers had to lower her perch for her to be able to flap up to it. In the end, Martha’s perch was barely above the ground. On September 1, 1914, at 1pm, Martha breathed her last, and fell lifelessly onto the cage floor. The Passenger Pigeon was extinct. Martha lived an astounding 29 years; most pigeons in captivity live up to 17 years. As soon as the zookeepers found her dead on the cage floor, she was brought to the Cincinnati Ice Company and packed into a 300 pound block of ice. She was sent by an express train to the Smithsonian, and arrived there three days after her death. Martha was molting when she died so she was missing some of her long tail coverts. William Palmer skinned the pigeon and Nelson Wood mounted her skin. Four years after Martha’s death, in her previously vacant cage, was the last Carolina Parakeet, Incus. Incus died in the same cage as Martha. In observance of the Passenger Pigeon’s day of extinction, September 1, 2014, Martha’s mount was brought out on public display at the museum. There are many questions to be asked about Martha and the Passenger Pigeons in general. Why didn’t Martha breed? Were the captive pigeons somehow negatively affected by not seeing many other pigeons? Why didn’t the pigeons survive in smaller flocks? First, the nature of Passenger Pigeons should be discussed. They lived in huge flocks, up to half a billion strong. John James Audubon, a nationally renowned Ornithologist, describes the flock as, “The air was literally filled with Pigeons; the light of noon-day was obscured as by an eclipse, the dung fell in spots, not unlike melting flakes of snow.” Ironically, there is a saying that “The ornithologist’s greatest tool is a gun.” Audubon shot and killed all the birds he painted, including Passenger Pigeons. Passenger Pigeons bred near the Great lakes. The male had a pale blue head, nape and wings. Its chest and was peach, and it had an iridescent bronze patch on the sides of its neck. Its secondaries, or innermost flight feathers, were dotted with black and its primaries, or outermost flight feathers were dark gray. It had dark gray tail coverts, or top-of-the-tail, and a white undertail feathers. The female was a brownish shade, but overall the color patterns were similar to the male. Passenger Pigeons fed on fruits and insects and could fly up to 62 miles per hour. At the population’s peak there were about five billion pigeons, more than humans at that time. Since so many were shot, about 50,000 birds each day, and their habitat was being destroyed, evolution couldn’t keep up with the pigeon’s ever-shrinking population. Eventually, when there were only small flocks left, this hyper-social bird did not know what to do. Before they were all killed, they were used to being protected by numbers and since the population had been sectioned into small flocks, other predators like Peregrine Falcons could pick the birds off easily. So, is this why no small flocks remained? We can’t know for sure, but it is the most probable answer. Why didn’t Martha breed? In the wild, there were many male Passenger Pigeons to one female. A plausible answer is that Martha had a mutation that prevented her from breeding. It could also be that captive pigeons were somehow affected by not seeing many other pigeons, making them behave unlike wild pigeons. But the most likely answer lies in…flamingos. Flamingos’ mating drive does not trigger if the flock is too small. No one knows why this happens, but it could be to prevent inbreeding. This might have been the case with Passenger Pigeons. Martha was in a group of only three pigeons, but in the wild, each flock is over a million strong. Like flamingos, this
Stone Soup Magazine for young readers, writers, and artists
Saturday Newsletter: December 15, 2018
“Frozen Beauty” by Hanna Gustafson, 12. Photograph published in Stone Soup, January 2018. A note from William Rubel Thanks to all of you who have so far answered our call for donations. We are overwhelmed by your generosity and support for our work in 2018. Click here if you didn’t receive the donor drive letter, or would like to read its message again. Do you love podcasts? Podcasters! We recently agreed to work with a South African podcaster who specializes in podcasts by kids. Details will follow in a few weeks. This podcaster told us that we should start our own podcast program. I’d like to know who amongst you—kid or adult—has worked on a podcast. If you have, or if you have skills you think might be helpful to us—please send me a letter by replying to this email. If you have worked on a published podcast, then please include the URL. A project for this week(end) For the project this week, I’d like you to look at the photograph “Frozen Beauty,” by Hanna Gustafson, which we are republishing here from last January’s issue, and to read the poem by Sheila Northrup it is paired with at the bottom of the newsletter. I want you to go outside with a phone or camera and take a photograph of winter beauty where you live. Where I live, this is a tough assignment; our winter beauty looks more like what for most of you would look like spring. If you live in Arizona or Florida or Texas or in my California, your winter beauty photograph will look very different from that of a reader in Maine or Wisconsin or Alaska. The poem says, “Now it is official./ Winter is finally here.” I want you to capture in a photograph what, to you, makes winter “official” where you live. As always, if you really like what you have done and think you have nailed the assignment, please upload it to our submissions website so Emma can see it. By the way, my daughter and I are flying to Egypt today! My colleagues will take over the newsletter while I’m away. Best wishes for the holidays! Until I return, More winners in our 45th birthday promotion: every 45th subscriber gets a free subscription! Congratulations to our latest winners–including our 450th subscriber since the promotion began, who gets extra prizes! Stone Soup was 45 years old this year. We are celebrating that birthday and celebrating being back in print with an offer to our loyal readers. Can you help us meet our target of 1,000 new print subscribers by the end of the year? We are offering free subscriptions and extra prizes at various points along the way, all tied into our age, and we are more than half way there!. Every 45th subscriber receives a free subscription (3 more this week, in New York, Wisconsin, and California) The 450th and 900th subscribers receive a free subscription, plus copies of all ten of the Stone Soup books in our collection (8 anthologies and 2 Annuals). A parcel will be on its way to Portland, Oregon, next week. And, the 1,000th will receive all of that, plus a free site license for the institution (school or public library) of their choice. It’s easy to subscribe: visit this page. This particular promotion will continue until we meet our target or get to the end of the year, whichever comes first. Please share this with everyone you think would benefit from joining the readership of Stone Soup. And don’t forget, you (and anyone you share the code with) can get a 10% discount on your annual subscription using the code CHEER2018 on our subscription form. This week on the blog This week, read Lucy Ward’s review of Noggin, by John Corey Whaley, and think, if you can, about what it might be like to wake up to find your head stuck on a different body! Holiday shopping For holiday gifts: all print subscriptions and other book and product orders ship within two days of being received. All orders received for the remainder of the year will be sent by Priority Mail. To be sure of delivery in time for Christmas, please order by December 17, or select one of the FedEx delivery options. For last-minute shoppers: Digital subscriptions (and the digital portion of combined print/digital subscriptions) are available immediately! Print and digital subscriptions via our website, Stonesoup.com. Use code CHEER2018 on annual subscriptions and receive a 10% discount (until December 31 only) Annuals, anthologies, notebooks, and sketchbooks, via our online store, Stonesoupstore.com Published in Stone Soup, January 2018 Winter By Sheila Northrup, 10 Illustrated with ‘Frozen Beauty’ by Hanna Gustafson, 12 Soft, white, flakes drift down, following the wind. They bring a sense of happiness to the air. The golden rays of warmth strike onto the fluffy blanket below. The harsh cold still manages to crawl inside houses. Heat vents roar and the windows give out a moan. Thick clouds soon hide the sun. Smoke floats out of the chimneys into the bitter air, while leaves and grass are out of sight. The snow is swallowing up trees. Hot chocolate is being slurped down at every house. Now it is official. Winter is finally here. Click here to read more poems and stories about winter published in Stone Soup. Our customer service contact details for anyone seeking help with a subscription: Email: stonesoup@icnfull.com (response usually within 24–48 hours) Phone: 215-458-8555 (between 7:30 a.m. and 10:00 p.m. ET, Monday through Friday; and 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. ET on Saturday and Sunday) Stone Soup’s Advisors: Abby Austin, Mike Axelrod, Annabelle Baird, Jem Burch, Evelyn Chen, Juliet Fraser, Zoe Hall, Montanna Harling, Alicia & Joe Havilland, Lara Katz, Rebecca Kilroy, Christine Leishman, Julie Minnis, Jessica Opolko, Tara Prakash, Denise Prata, Logan Roberts, Emily Tarco, Rebecca Ramos Velasquez, Susan Wilky. To our adult readers and supporters… as Winston Churchill once said, “We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.” The smallest gift from just a few
Noggin, Reviewed by Lucy Ward, 13
Can you imagine waking up to find your head is stuck on a different body? Noggin, by John Corey Whaley, is a stunning science fiction story about Travis Coates, a boy with cancer, who wakes up to find his head is attached to a different body. When his cancer becomes teminal, the 16-year-old has a decision to make. Stay alive for a few more weeks or have his head chopped off, only to be frozen and reattached to a different body. Now, five years later, Travis is alive again and everything is the same. Well, almost. His head is on a completely different body and he’s still 16. To add to this, Travis realizes that his girlfriend is engaged and his best friend has forgotten he’s even back on this earth. Travis, a new town hero due to his new body, struggles to find his way in high school. Again. Whaley has taken a tough topic, cancer, and given it a comedic twist, shaping the characters into relatable people. Whaley not only tells the saga of a a teen battling with cancer while discovering his new self, but also adds witty and passionate parts that make the book lively and full, like you’re talking to Travis himself. For example; when Travis is talking to Kyle, his best friend, about his how weird his situation is, “You know things are weird when you start appreciating your farts,” he says. This is an example where Whaley has taken a sci-fi topic and added humor, constructing an accessible plot. I am not a huge fan of science fiction, so when I was assigned to read a sci-fi book, I was discouraged. But once I read the blurb on the back, I was hooked. Whaley slips sci-fi elements into the novel, not an overwhelming amount, but enough to still add to the story line. The book is told by Travis, so you can be engrossed in the story and his experience. Overall, this a pleasurable read, poignant and humorous, and I would recommend it to anyone thirteen and up looking for a feel-good novel. Noggin by John Corey Whaley. Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2014. Buy the book here and support Stone Soup in the process! Have you read this book? Or do you plan on reading it? Let us know in the comments below!
