When the last big passenger pigeon flock flew to Northern Michigan in 1880, they sought refuge where they best knew they could find it—the beech and maple forests where they’d been before, writes Jess Piskor in the first of a two-part series about beech trees and passenger pigeons, once prominent along our lakeshore. Killed nonstop for centuries, they were hunted out of the East Coast, had fled the Appalachians and found no succor in the Plains. Deep in our hardwood forests they made nests in numbers so thick their weight broke branches. They sought beechnuts along Lake Michigan, amidst the dunes and the lakes. Thrice daily—twice the males and once the females—would fly across the county in sky darkening flights for food, taking turns sitting on the nest of their typically singular egg. Crop full they’d return to a 40-square-mile forest along the Platte River, where they sought to raise a last brood.
