The birds depended on the huge forests for their spring nesting sites, for winter "roosts," and for food. The mainstays of the passenger pigeon's diet were beechnuts, acorns, chestnuts, seeds, and ...

The passenger pigeon was once the most numerous bird in the world. In the mid-1800s, billions of these birds were flying over the forests of eastern North America. Yet in just half a century, they’d ...