[Extinct]
United States [Kentucky] 1813
John James Audubon, Ornithological Biography: An Account of the Habits of the Birds of the United States, Volume 1, Adam Black, Edinburgh, 1831, pp. 320 – 326.
In the autumn of 1813, I left my house at Henderson, on the banks of the Ohio, on my way to Louisville…. [A] few miles beyond Hardensburgh …. 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; and the continued buzz of wings had a tendency to lull my senses to repose.
Whilst waiting for dinner at Young’s inn at the confluence of Salt-River with the Ohio, I saw … immense legions still going by, with a front reaching far beyond the Ohio on the west, and the beech-wood forests directly on the east of me….
Before sunset I reached Louisville, distant from Hardensburgh fifty-five miles. The Pigeons were still passing in undiminished numbers, and continued to do so for three days in succession.
….
It may not, perhaps, be out of place to attempt an estimate of the number of Pigeons contained in one of those mighty flocks …. One billion, one hundred and fifteen millions, one hundred and thirty-six thousand pigeons in one flock.
….
They now alight, but the next moment, as if suddenly alarmed, they take to wing, producing by the flappings of their wings a noise like the roar of distant thunder….
….
The dung lay several inches deep, covering the whole extent of the roosting-place, like a bed of snow. Many trees two feet in diameter, I observed, were broken off at no great distance from the ground; and the branches of many of the largest and tallest had given way, as if the forest had been swept by a tornado.
….
The Pigeons, arriving by thousands, alighted everywhere, one above another, until solid masses as large as hogsheads were formed on the branches all round. Here and there the perches gave way under the weight with a crash, and, falling to the ground, destroyed hundreds of the birds beneath, forcing down the dense groups with which every stick was loaded.
….
Pigeons commence their nests in general peace and harmony…. On the same tree from fifty to a hundred nests may frequently be seen:—I might say a much greater number, were I not anxious, kind reader, that however wonderful my account of the Wild Pigeon is, you may not feel disposed to refer it to the marvellous.
