Spring Brings Immense Flocks of Wild Pigeons

After a long and tedious winter Spring has once more fairly come upon us. Innumerable flocks of wild pigeons have, for several days been passing on their annual northern flight. And on Monday evening we had warm and genial showers with thunder and lightning to match — and which would have done no discredit, to a sultry night in August.

April 11, 1844. Spring. Rutland Herald 50(15): 3.

Woman in Bridport Kills Pigeons With Musket

Bennington, (Vermont) May 30.

A gentleman from the northward informs ..., that a few days since, a WOMAN, belonging to Bridport, have for some days observed the pigeons to be very thick round a certain salt spring, near her house, charged a musket, and lay in ambush till a favourable opportunity presented for a shot, when, on the discharge of her gun, the killed thirty-one fine pigeons.

June 11, 1791. By yesterday's mail. Bennington, Vermont. Pennsylvania Mercury and Universal Advertiser 716: 4.

Spring Reports of Wild Pigeons in 1803

On Saturday and Sunday last, the attention of the inhabitants of this vicinity was arrested by the flights of numerous and very extensive flocks of wild or wood pigeons; they passed from south to the north and appeared to those who were immediately under them, as sundry times, for several successive minutes, to almost exclude the sky. About thirteen years since, a similar flight of these birds of passage was noticed : the ensuing summer was then very sickly. With the great and pious Dr. Samuel Johnson, we would neither blindly admit or rashly reject an attention to these imaginary or real omens. It is man's wisdom to prepare for adversity by penitence for past sin and to meet it with resignation to the Divine Will. It is recorded for our instruction, that when God saw that the repentant Ninevites returned from the evil of their ways, he repented of the evil, that he said he would do unto them and did it not.

March 28, 1803. [Flights of numerous flocks of wild pigeons.] Brattleboro Reporter 1(6): 3.

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Baltimore, March 28.

The immense flights of pidgeons over this city Thursday and Friday, from the north-east to the south-west, afforded fine sport to our city gunners. The park and other neighbouring patches of wood, were filled with sportsmen — and the incessant popping of their fowling pieces had no small resemblance to a skirmish among infantry. The field was finally cleared of pidgeons after nearly 2 days hard shooting; the number of slain we have not heard, but it is supposed to have amounted to some thousands.

How fine a theme would this have been for Shakespeare's Jaques to moralize upon. We hope the same equinoxial gale which has driven back the poor pidgeons to their winter quarters, may not have overtaken the unfortunate mariner and occasioned as fine sport for the sharks of the ocean, as for the gunners of our city.

March 30, 1803. New York Evening Post 425: 5. From the Baltimore Gazette. Also: Poulson's American Daily Advertiser 32(8206): 2 on March 31, 1803; April 6, 1803 in Maryland Herald.

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[Many Pidgeons Flew Over Philadelphia.]

A few days since many pidgeons flew over this city! Had we seen all those that flew in the night, 'tis supposed there would have been as many again as their actually were!

April 12, 1803. Philadelphia Gazette of the United States 23(3281): 3. Also: April 8, 1803 in Baltimore Republican; May 3, 1803 in Farmer's Literary Gazette 10(526): 3.

The Swallow Tree - Historic Swift Roost in Vermont

Z. Thompson. Correspondence of the Traveler.

Burlington, (Vt.) June 15, 1852.

Editors of the Traveler: — Objects which are interesting to the curious and puzzling to the knowing ones, are coming to the light, almost every day, in various parts of the country. Of this class are the contents of what is technically called a Swallow Tree, which have recently been discovered in Middlebury in this State. — At the time the first settlements were made in the western parts of Vermont, these swallow trees were quite common here, and several of them are described by Dr. Williams in his history of the State. They were usually very large elms, or sycamores, having extensive hollows within and an opening in the side, at a considerable height from the ground, at which the swallows entered and made their egress. — Early each spring, and about sunrise in the morning, myriads of swallows were seen to issue from the boles in these trees and disperse themselves over the country, and, in the dusk of the evening, they were observed to return again to their common roosting places in the hollows of the trees. Thus they continued to disperse themselves in the morning and collect together in the evening, till they commenced pairing and rearing their young in the spring, and the same phenomena were also observed again just before the final disappearance of the swallows in the fall, and for a long time the opinion prevailed that they passed the winter in these trees in a torpid state. But it is now, I believe, well settled that this resort to particular trees, in early times, and to particular old chimneys in modern, as common roosting places, is only a temporary arrangement attending their arrival in spring and their migration southward in autumn.

These swallow trees, which were so common in early times, had, probably many of them, been resorted to by thousands of birds, year after year, for centuries. The natural consequence would be, for the cavities in which they roosted, to become gradually filled up with excrement cast off feathers, exuvia of insects and rotten wood, and, accordingly, trees have been found in this condition long after the swallows have ceased to resort to them. One of the kind, in Ohio, is descried in Harris Journal, and quoted in Wilson's Ornithology. The tree was a hollow sycamore, five feet in diameter, and had been blown down. Its immense hollow was found to be filled, for the space of fifteen feet, with "a mess of decayed feathers, with a small admixture of brownish dust and the exuvia of various insects."

The tree recently found in Middlebury resembled, in most respects, the one above mentioned. The tree had blown down, and had, afterwards, nearly all rotted away, leaving little remaining, excepting the feathery mass, which had filled its hollow, and which was now bedded in leaves and moss. The tree was, probably, an elm, and, judging from the size of the cylindrical mass of the contents, the diameter of its hollow must have been almost fifteen inches, which had been filled some six or seven feet. Of the materials which had filled it, about one-half consists of feathers, being, for the most part, the wing and tail feathers of the chimney swallow, (Cypsilus pelasgius Tem.). The other half is made up of the exuvia of insects, mostly the fragments and eggs of the large wood ant, and a brownish dust, probably derived from the decayed wood of the interior of the tree.

Now, while the discovery at Middlebury is, on many accounts, an interesting one, there would be nothing very remarkable in it, were the materials which had filled the hollow of the tree jumbled promiscuously and disorderly together. It would be just what we should expect to find in a hollow tree, which had been for centuries, perhaps, the roosting place of myriads of swallows. But this is not the case. As a general thing, the large feathers have their quills pointing outward at the surface of the cylindrical trees, while the plumes, or ends containing the vanes, point inward. This arrangement might perhaps arise from the nesting of small quadrupeds in the hollow, making the feathers their bed. But in addition to this, we find in various portions of the mess, in some cases all the feathers of the tail, embedded in the mass, lying in context, and precisely in the order and position in which they are found in the living swallow. In a mass of the materials, measuring not more than 7 inches by 5 and less than 3 inches thick, I could trace, at least, 5 wings and 2 tails, and on one of the wings the secondary quills were also plainly arranged in their true position with regard to the primaries. Now it is not possible to conceive that these feathers were shed by living birds in the order in which they are found. But if the birds died there, what has become of their beaks, claws and bones? We should think that these, or portions of them, would be as durable as the feathers; but I do not learn that a particle of any of these has been found in any part of the mess. How then have these been removed, while the wing and tail feathers remain in their true natural position? It could hardly be done by any violent means without disturbing them. But if done quietly, what did it? Would any insects devour the bones and not the quills? Does the formic, or any other acid, which might be generated within the hollow of the tree, decompose bone?

I shall not attempt to explain the phenomenon. I have endeavoured to state the facts, as they were kindly furnished me by my friend J.A. Jameson, Tutor in our university, who visited the locality in May; and, as ascertained by myself by a careful examination of a considerable mass of the materials, which were procured by him and presented to the University Museum for preservation, and shall leave it to others to secure for them.

July 9, 1852. Burlington Free Press 7(2): 1, new series.

The Early Blue Bird - A Poem from 1860

By Mrs. L.H. Sigourny.

Blue bird! on yon leafless tree.

Dost thou carol thus to me.

"Spring is coming Spring is here!"

Say'st thou so my birdie dear?

What is that in misty shroud,

Stealing from the darkened cloud?

Lo! the snow flakes' gathering mound

Settles o'er the whitened ground,

Yet thou singest, blithe and clear,

"Spring is coming Spring is here!"

 

Strik'st thou not too bold a strain?

Winds are piping o'er the plains,

Clouds are sweeping o'er the sky,

With a black and threatening eye;

Urchins by the frozen rill,

Wrap their mantles closer still :

Yon poor man with doublet old,

Doth he shiver with the cold?

Hath he not n nose of blue?

Tell me, birdling — tell me true?

 

Spring's a maid of mirth and glee,

Rosy wreaths and revelry;

Hast thou wooed some winged love

To a nest in verdant grove?

Sung to her of greenwood bower,

Sunny skies that never lower?

Lured her with thy promise fair,

Prithee, bird in coat of blue,

Though a lover — tell her true.

 

Ask her, if, when storms are long,

She can sing a cheerful song?

When the rude winds rock the tree,

If she'll closer cling to thee?

Then the blasts that sweep the sky,

Unappalled, shall pass thee by;

Tho thy curtained chamber show,

Sittings of untimely snow,

Warm and glad thy heart shall be,

Love shall make it Spring for thee.

April 14, 1860. Vermont Phoenix 27(15): 4. Also: May 2, 1861. Holmes County Farmer 23(11):4, new series.