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The Domestic Turkey and the First Thanksgiving

10,000 Birds

According to some sources, when the so-called Pilgrims settled in for the First Thanksgiving Dinner with the local Native Americans, in 1620, they dined on Turkey, and this Turkey came from the Old World, from stock that was originally brought to Spain by Columbus. They may have also had hunting dogs with them as well.

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Listening to Falcons: The Peregrines of Tom Cade

10,000 Birds

His parents moved where opportunity beckoned, taking him from San Angelo, Texas, to Columbus, New Mexico, then to Dallas, and finally on to California. Done properly, a young hawk is curtailed in a growing compulsion to fly greater distances and hunt for herself by a process sometimes called “manning.”

Falcons 171
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Come@Me: Don’t Mourn for Extinct Birds

10,000 Birds

The causes were the usual reasons for island extinction—deforestation by both humans and invasive plants that crowded out native plants, hunting, and invasive rats, mongoose, monkeys, and, of course, feral cats. We know what those large flocks were like.

Mauritius 101