Monthly Archives: February 2020

Hope is the Thing With Feathers -012



We haven’t kept up with the Sally-B for many decades, but as I was researching this, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that the plane is still flying. Although Ted White has died, Ellie Sallingboe continues to operate the B-17 with a faithful crew of pilots (apart from herself) and other volunteers. You can learn more about this plane in Wikipedia and/or by going to the official website www.sallyb.org.uk. To learn more about what we humans have done, and are doing, to birds, I recommend a compelling story in the book, The Feather Thief: Beauty, Obsession, and the Natural History Heist of the Century by Kirk Wallace Johnson (2018). Further, you might want to look up (on the Internet) how the Passenger Pigeon became extinct through hunting, and how birds continue to be smuggled and sold for the pet trade.