I’ve been a student of natural history for as long as I can remember and enjoy visiting science-based museums. Among the more interesting are the older ones which feature taxidermy specimens, where you sometimes find unexpected surprises.
All the birds in this post are extinct, or thought to be extinct. They are all from displays at Boston’s Museum of Science.
The bird featured in the top photo is a Labrador duck. Never a common bird, it was mostly found along the east coast of Canada, especially in Labrador and around the Gulf of St. Lawrence. It rapidly disappeared for reasons that aren’t well understood, and was declared extinct in 1878,
Passenger pigeons were once plentiful (found in the billions) in North America. They vanished because of habitat loss and overhunting, and have been extinct since 1914 when the last passenger pigeon died at the Cincinnati Zoo. The term “stool pigeon” refers to passenger pigeons tied to a stool, used to lure other pigeons in.
The ivory-billed woodpecker was the largest woodpecker in the USA, found mostly in the southeastern states. It has been declared extinct since 2021, although unconfirmed sights are still rarely reported.
I once saw a preserved dodo bird (stuffed into a formalin jar) at a museum in Prague, but photography was not allowed. Still, I thought it quite unique to see such a famous extinct bird.
