"It's hard to imagine, but there was once a bird so numerous that flocks of them would darken the sky for hours as they passed overhead. The passenger pigeon. Some flocks were over a billion birds. They were probably the most abundant bird on the entire planet. And within fifty years, every single one was gone. This is the saddest story I know — but it's a story everyone should hear."
The Most Abundant Bird on Earth
The passenger pigeon (Ectopistes migratorius) was once the most abundant bird in North America — and possibly the most abundant bird on Earth. Estimated peak population: 3 to 5 billion birds, meaning the species alone may have made up 25–40% of all birds in North America. Flocks were so massive that they darkened the sky for hours as they passed; one documented flock in 1866 was estimated at 3.5 billion birds, a mile wide and 300 miles long. Passenger pigeons lived in enormous communal nesting colonies that could cover hundreds of square miles. Their diet was primarily acorns, beechnuts, and chestnuts — the mast of the great eastern forests. The species was a keystone of the eastern forest ecosystem, shaping tree distributions and feeding predators. Their sheer abundance made them seem indestructible. They were not.
