Emerald Dove (11/11)

COLUMBIFORMES: Columbidae

Chalcophaps indica  

In Memory of Martha (and her kin)

100 years ago, on the 1st September, 1914, at Cincinnati in the United States, Martha, the last Passenger Pigeon died and a species became extinct.

Passenger Pigeons were once the most numerous bird in the world with flocks estimated in the billions darkening the sky for hours at a time as they passed.

A few decades earlier, it would have seemed incredible that Passenger Pigeons could become extinct.

We are all poorer each time a species disappears from the planet.

This is not a dead Passenger Pigeon of course. It is an Emerald Dove living exactly 100 years after Martha, the last Passenger Pigeon, died.