Capital Birds
In 1900, Washington, DC was home to bird lovers, bird hunters, bird researchers, bird educators, bird lobbyists, and yes, many actual birds.
Any given weekday morning during spring and fall migration, you can probably find me wandering the US Capitol Grounds looking for the colorful neotropical songbirds that sweep through Washington, DC on their way to or from their northern breeding grounds. Dressed in business casual and standing slightly off the sidewalk, craning my head skyward trying to train my binoculars on a tiny warbler zipping about the canopy, I’m sure I present an odd sight to the fast-walking congressional staffers who have no idea of the avian abundance around them.
While my preference would be to spend every daylight hour during May and September chasing birds, a nine-to-five office job keeps that dream on hold. I try to steal back what time I can by waking up an hour or two early and squeezing some birding into my morning commute, which passes near the Capitol. Its wooded grounds are, surprisingly, one of the best spots in the city to catch migrating birds, who must see the park as a welcoming island of green amid a sea of sterile concrete.
For at least 125 years, the Capitol Grounds have been a popular spot for Washingtonians to look for migrating birds. The city’s first guide to birding, published in 1899 “in response to a great demand for a cheap book of information about local birds,” notes that “the large grounds of the Capitol, White House, Agricultural Department, and Smithsonian are good observation grounds,”1 before walking through a list of other top birding hotspots, almost all of which still draw birders today. Washington, DC has long been home to bird lovers, bird researchers, bird educators, bird lobbyists, and yes, many actual birds. And while the best spots for seeing birds haven’t changed, the way we relate to them most certainly has.
Capital Birding
In 1899, many of America’s birding royalty lived in the District of Columbia. These professional ornithologists and nature writers were brought to the city by jobs at the Smithsonian Museum or the Bureau of Biological Survey. One of the most storied figures was Florence Merriam Bailey, whose 1889 book Birds Through an Opera-Glass arguably gave birth to modern birding. Bailey wrote the introduction to the city’s first birding guide, Birds of Washington and Vicinity, which she used to lead the reader through the many birding hotspots that the city had to offer, promising that “Washington is a particularly good place in which to get acquainted with birds.”
Apparently, Bailey also felt that there was not enough time in the day to see all of the city’s birds, writing that “in going outside of the city to look for birds Washingtonians are peculiarly favored, for the suburban car lines carry them out so quickly that even the few free hours of a busy day may be used to great advantage.” On one excursion, Florence Bailey counted “forty-eight species on a circuit of a mile from the terminus of the 14th Street car line down along Piney Branch and back through Mt. Pleasant.” Arlington Cemetery was a popular spot to find winter birds, while water birds could be found on the Anacostia River’s wetlands.
“There is no better place to observe the migrations,” wrote Bailey, “than the unfrequented parts of the Zoological Park and Rock Creek Park adjoining.” As one walks through the Zoo’s gate, Bailey described how “the low wooded hills on the right are almost sure to be echoing” with the songs of cardinals, oven-birds, scarlet tanagers, and wood thrushes. Further along, “the bushes along the north bank of Rock Creek below the prairie-dog houses are favorite resorts for warblers.”
But one didn’t need to head to the park to be surrounded by birds. Strolling the National Mall, DC’s residents and tourists could find robins “in the Smithsonian grounds running over the grass in search of grubs and angle worms,” while fish crows “make themselves at home on its towers and regardless of spectators perch on the bare trees near by.” There was even a famous colony of barn owls in the Smithsonian towers.
Inside the national museum, bird-lovers could get help with tricky bird identification questions. “With the Smithsonian collections of mounted birds and study skins,” recommended Lucy Maynard, “all but the most obscure species can easily be identified.” Younger visitors could learn about birds in the Smithsonian’s children’s room, which featured the cross-section of a chimney swift’s nest in a section of an old chimney, and the diorama of a female blue-gray gnatcatcher incubating her eggs.
Audubon Activism
Washington’s lively community of bird-lovers didn’t just watch birds. The local Audubon Society chapter, which happened to be led by US Surgeon General George Sternberg, was extremely active in protecting the birds from threats ranging from cats to market hunters to boys with BB guns. The local newspaper The Evening Star wrote that “literally without fuss or feathers, the women and men who compose the Audubon Societies are working together, quietly, steadily, thoughtfully, for the protection of birds, and hence for the good of all mankind.”2
A big part of this work was educating the public about the importance of protecting birds. Four hundred people attended a lecture titled “Some Familiar Birds” hosted at the First Baptist Church, which was “made doubly entertaining by Mr. Olds’ clever imitations of the notes of the various birds explained.”3 The Society offered plenty of opportunities to learn about birds outdoors as well, and “trained ornithologists” would lead monthly bird walks “through the beautiful woods, so easy to access around Washington.”4 They also added a collection of reference books to the city’s Free Library, which had just been established in 1896.
By 1899, the study of birds in schools was “becoming more general and popular,”5 and Audubon ornithologists offered classes to local teachers to help with their instruction. The Commissioner’s manual for DC’s public schools instructed teachers to “set off fifteen minutes daily for nature talks, during which time let the pupils tell what birds they have seen” and “cause them to discover as many kinds of birds as possible.”6 The local bird guide Birds of Washington and Vicinity was even adopted as a textbook by district schools, which purchased 500 copies at 85 cents each.7
Children proved to be enthusiastic allies in the cause of bird protection, and around a thousand of them bought and wore three-cent Audubon buttons to advertise their support.8 DC’s Audubon Society reported that “the little ones are very proud of their connection with the movement,” and whenever they’re “tempted to despoil a nest, or upon seeing a companion in such an act, they are reminded of their duty by the button in the lapel of their coat and act accordingly.”9
Bird Law
Constitutional limitations made it difficult for Congress to directly regulate the killing of birds in the states (the US eventually got around this limitation in 1916 when it signed the Migratory Bird Treaty with Canada, which bound both countries to pass laws protecting birds). These limitations were not an issue in the District of Columbia, where local laws were passed by the US Congress, rather than by an elected city council, until 1973. And in an indication of its conservationist sentiments in the 1880s and 1890s, Congress passed several laws to protect songbirds and regulate the hunting of game birds in Washington.
Yet these laws were widely recognized as ineffective. In 1895 one contributor to the Washington Times mourned that “in our glorious woodlands, the bluebirds, redbirds, scarlet tanagers and the gorgeous oriole are almost exterminated.”10 Another writer attributed this sad state of affairs to the raids of “the professional pothunter, the bird snarer, or boys with guns or bean-shooters … [in] the suburbs of Washington, where the police force is not sufficient to properly patrol the outskirts of the city.”11 Visitors to Washington’s markets could find the results of these depredations. Even though the illegal sale of songbirds carried the steep fine of two dollars per bird, “as many as 300 blue birds have been seen at one time in the game stalls of the Center Market,”12 to be sold as pets or for their feathers. In 1896 alone, 2,600 robins were sold for their meat at Washington market.13
But dead birds could also be seen anywhere polite society gathered, since feathered hats were a near-mandatory ladies’ accessory. In 1899, the naturalist Vernon Bailey (and husband of Florence) counted thirteen grebe skins on women’s hats in the space of a single streetcar ride. He described how these birds were harvested by the tens of thousands by hunters in California and Oregon. For twenty cents each, “the birds are shot, the skins of the breasts are stripped off, dried flat and packed in gunny sacks.” Bailey warned that “a few years more and there will be no need of protecting them; they will be where the Egrets, the Pigeons and the Buffalo are — in our memories.”14
Of course, there were still some birds that were still perfectly legal and respectable to kill. The hunting season for game birds like ducks, bitterns, and bobolinks began on September 1st, and the Evening Star announced that “the slaughter of the toothsome reed birds and other game species in the marshes and morasses about Washington will soon begin,” meaning that shortly “‘Reed bird on toast,’ will be displayed in the local restaurants.”15
All along the Anacostia and Potomac marshes that first September day, hunters from all walks of life assembled for “the slaughter of innocents,” ranging “from the gentleman sportsman with his pusher and favorite breech-loader, hunting rail, to the ragged representative of the ‘other half,’ with the cheap, old-fashioned, single-barreled muzzle-loader … to whom all flesh is game.” Professional market hunters were also in the mix, and on the first day of the season each one might take home “from twelve to twenty dozen Carolina rail and as many reedbirds.”16
But 1899 marked a monumental shift for birds in the District. That year, Congress passed a strengthened game law and the Audubon Society began stepping up its advocacy and enforcement of the laws. Taking advantage of authorization to inspect any market stands and cold storage facilities for illegally-held game, deputized Audubon Society officers monitored millinery businesses for compliance with the bans on using wild bird feathers to make hats.17 The local Society also held exhibitions to showcase fashionable feather-free hats at the Hotel Corcoran, with one event drawing three hundred women, and every person attending left well supplied with Audubon literature.”18
By 1903, the Audubon Society could report with pride that “occasional examinations of markets and commission houses have revealed no flagrant violation of game-laws, no songbirds offered for sale. All sale of Grebes and ‘Water Witches’ in the markets has been effectively stopped. The sale of live native birds has been reduced to a minimum, and the trapping of song-birds near the city has been practically stopped. The laws for the protection of birds and game have been generally well observed.”19
The Birds That Remain
Life in Washington has changed dramatically since 1900. While the Capitol and White House look much the same, the city’s residents now commute by car and subway rather than streetcar and wagon. New monuments have sprung up, and alongside them brutalist federal office buildings and glass-encrusted apartments. As the city has filled in, some once-common birds have grown scarce. In 1902 Florence Bailey wrote about how “Horned Larks, Tree Sparrows, and Purple Finches come into the city from their suburban weed patches, and the Larks are sometimes seen walking soberly along Pennsylvania Avenue.” All three of these birds are uncommon today, and any report of a Horned Lark on Pennsylvania Avenue would bring birders rushing through the city with the hope of getting a look. And the barn owls that once lived in the Smithsonian tower? Nowadays these rare birds only pass through Washington about once every five years.
Other birds have become much more common, at least at certain times of the year. Florence Bailey considered one of the best days each year “the day when from a tree opposite the Treasury the first spring carol of the Robin arrested my steps and magically transformed the noisy city streets into quiet countryside.” In her day, robins were a rare winter sighting, but the warming climate has moved their range northward. Since the 1990s, robins have been common year-round residents.
But there are some things that the passage of time has not changed. Rock Creek Park endures as a destination for birds and birders alike. The Smithsonian is still an invaluable resource for bird study and education, while the DC Audubon Society continues to advocate on behalf of birds in the city and the nation. And of course, the city’s crows remain. In 1902 Bailey wrote that “residents of Washington are familiar with the sight of a seemingly endless procession of Crows straggling across the sunset sky to the famous roost at Arlington.” More than a hundred years later, Washingtonians leaving their offices can still look upward at the crows flying back across the river to Virginia on their timeless commute.
In Other News…
I was on a podcast! Last week the folks at Odd Lots had me on their show to talk about the lost field of economic ornithology (which I wrote about earlier this year) and what it takes to put a price on a wild bird. Give it a listen!
Maynard, Lucy Warner. Birds of Washington and Vicinity: Including Adjacent Parts of Maryland and Virginia. United States: Woodward & Lothrop, 1902.
“Audubon Societies.” Evening Star (Washington, DC), March 18, 1905.
“Reports of Societies: District of Columbia.” Bird-Lore. Vol 1, no. 2. 1899.
Bird-lore. United States: Macmillan Company, 1903.
“The Audubon Society.” Evening star. (Washington, D.C.), 15 April 1899. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress.
Report of the Commissioners of the District of Columbia: Vol. IV [Public Schools]. United States: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1899.
“Reports of Societies: District of Columbia.” Bird-Lore. Vol 2, no. 6. 1900.
“Reports of Societies: District of Columbia.” Bird-Lore. Vol 1, no. 2. 1899.
“The Audubon Society.” Evening star. (Washington, D.C.), 15 April 1899. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress.
Brent, Margaret. “Birds that Make Music in District Trees.” The Washington Times, Sunday, July 14, 1895.
Ridgway, Robert. “Songbirds in Europe and America.” Bird-Lore. Vol 2, no. 3. June, 1900.
Brent, Margaret. “Birds that Make Music in District Trees.” The Washington Times, Sunday, July 14, 1895.
Maynard, Lucy Warner. Birds of Washington and Vicinity: Including Adjacent Parts of Maryland and Virginia. United States: Woodward & Lothrop, 1902.
Bailey, Vernon. “Where the Grebe Skins Come From.” Bird-Lore. Vol 1. 1899.
“Now For Reed Birds.” The Evening Star (Washington, DC), August 26, 1905.
Ibid.
“Gunners are Alert.” Evening Star (Washington, DC), August 11, 1899.
“Reports of Societies: District of Columbia.” Bird-Lore. Vol 1, no. 2. 1899.
Bird-lore. United States: Macmillan Company, 1903.