Joann Merritt's Essays

The Filmy Finery Of Mating Season
April, 2000

It was a pitiful sight. Two Great Egrets were all hunkered down at water’s edge on the east side of TI Pond, their backs to the cold wind in a chin-on-one’s-chest posture of utter dejection. Their bedraggled breeding plumes dangling in the water added to this forlorn scene. They had probably intended to get their plumes dry cleaned upon arriving in Midland, never thinking that it might rain.

In reading from several books that afternoon I learned that both the male and female Great Egrets have breeding plumes that grow from their back and measure up to 54” in length extending a foot or so beyond the tail. They were described in glowing phrases. Some examples are: (1) a magnificent train of long plumes, (2) a splendid cape, (3) flowing white plumes, (4) a nuptial train, (5) a magnificent veil and the ultimate fanciful description, (6) the filmy finery of mating season. The plumage we observed more closely resembled old hula-hula skirts. Seeing the feathers in this condition made it hard to imagine them being in great demand to decorate ladies hats as was the case at the turn of the century. Men also joined in this style of the times by wearing feathers in their fedoras, although much less gaudy ones. The accoutrements seemed to work for the birds in attracting mates so people evidently decided to try this ploy, much to the detriment of birds, especially herons and egrets.

Conservationists, ornithologists and other groups began to vigorously protest the harm being done to avian populations by hunters who killed the birds for their valuable feathers. The first big undertaking (bad choice of words!) by the Audubon Society was to try to stop this senseless killing of birds. The opposition countered with some of the same responses we hear today. Jobs will be lost, are birds more important than people and the economy? The feathered hat fad finally passed but not before millions of birds had been slaughtered.

In 1886 a most unusual birding list was compiled by Frank Chapman, ornithologist for the American Museum of Natural History. During two strolls down the streets of Manhattan he tallied 40 species, not 40 species of live birds but of bird feathers that he observed decorating some 700 hats. According to his survey in addition to heron and Egret feathers, Bobwhite, Flicker, Common Tern, Snow Bunting and Cedar Waxwing feathers were also very popular.

We checked TI Pond the next morning but the egrets were gone. We had wanted to see for ourselves what I had read about on the previous day, the sight of egrets displaying their beautiful filmy finery of mating season instead of looking as if they had been jilted and left at the alter as we had seen them. Seeing these Egret plumes, bedraggled though they were, was a Great experience.