Long-extinct heath hen comes to life in archival film
By Carolyn Y. Johnson
http://brightcove.vo.llnwd.net/d21/unsecured/media/245991542/201403/2914/245991542_3298297880001_Boston-Globe-Clip.mp4
MEDFORD — The bird stamps its feet on the ground, taking mincing dance steps through the corn stubble. Neck feathers flare like a headdress, and the male puffs out his neck, making a hollow, hooting call that has been lost to history.
These courtship antics are captured on a silent, black-and-white film that is believed to be the only footage of something not seen for nearly a century: the extinct heath hen.
The film, circa 1918, is the birding equivalent of an Elvis sighting, said Wayne Petersen of Mass Audubon — mind-blowing and transfixing to people who care. It will premier Saturday at a birding conference in Waltham.
Massachusetts officials commissioned the film nearly a century ago as part of an effort to preserve and study the game bird, once abundant from Southern New Hampshire to Northern Virginia. Then, like the heath hen, the film was largely forgotten.
Martha’s Vineyard is where the last known heath hens lived, protected in a state preserve. But the last one vanished by 1932.
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https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/03/07/long-extinct-heath-hen-comes-life-archival-film/X9zKEdB6dvH71Pt6rB2tFL/story.html
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