The Tale of the Dovekie

Around Thanksgiving of 1950, when my Dad was just 8 years old, there was a terrible winter storm in Chester County, Pennsylvania, with snow and gusting winds. The following day, a neighbor arrived at my Dad's home, carrying a bird he found dead by the road. My Grandpa was known for his taxidermy skills at that time, and the neighbor thought that he might enjoy mounting this interesting bird.

The small bird was like no other bird that Grandpa had ever seen in Central PA. After careful research in the Encyclopedia, the family identified the bird as a Dovekie, also known as a Little Auk (check this link after the Wikipedia Blackout), which normally lives in the Arctic, specifically Iceland and Greenland. Grandpa surmised that it was blown South in the storm. Through his research, he learned that the bird can not take flight unless it is on water, so once it landed on solid ground, it was unable to fly back North.

In fact, a similar story is told by Laura Ingalls Wilder, in her book "The Long Winter" (I found it in Chapter 5, "After the Storm".) Pa determines in much the same way, that the bird was blown in by the storm.

My Dad remembers the stuffed Dovekie being in his home for all they years he was living there. When my grandparents moved to the retirement community more than 15 years ago, they found new homes for many of their treasures. The Dovekie went to a friend who had expressed interest in having it.

Several years ago, Grandpa asked my Dad to find the Dovekie. He had given up taxidermy many years prior, but had taken up the art of carving birds. He was interested in carving the Dovekie. Dad made many phone calls, and finally located the bird at a museum in Delaware. He and Grandpa visited there, and saw the Dovekie. The curator at the museum also showed them a magazine article from 1950, about Grandpa having found this unusual bird. Apparently he had to apply for special permission to preserve it, as it is not a game bird.



In 2007, Grandpa made a carving of the Dovekie, who is sitting on a rock. The carving now sits in our home, and belongs to L. Dad gifted it to her last week, as part of the settling of Grandpa's estate.



It is very meaningful to me to have this little bird sitting on my shelf. I remember hearing stories of the Dovekie while growing up, but never saw a picture of the little bird until my Dad moved next door to us and displayed the carving. Now I too can treasure this masterpiece, made by my Grandpa, whose hands and heart are now too weak and slow for carving the delicate feathers on his birds.