Passenger Pigeon
This story probably starts last fall (2009) when I was doing my Big Ten tour researching passenger pigeons (or pp for short). Don Gorney and I spent a day in Bloomington IN going through the Amos Butler papers. Butler was, in Ken Brock’s words, the grandfather of Indiana ornithology and his 1898 tome on the [...]
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Horicon is a thirty-two thousand acre marsh in south central Wisconsin. A creation of the last great glacial incursion, it is one of, if not the, largest cattail marsh on the continent. Ditches running thought it represent the scars from people trying to drain it a hundred or so years ago. But they failed, and [...]
Continue reading about A Rainy Day at Horicon Followed by Sunshine
Her name is Martha, or at least the most famous one was named Martha. My current obsession is passenger pigeons, the last one of whom, Martha, died in the Cincinnati Zoo on September 1, 1914. I am madly researching all that I can find about this remarkable species for a book I am hoping can come [...]
Continue reading about A Weekend With My Mistress and Real Friends Too