though now extinct in the US, in 1813 John Audubon saw a flock of passenger pigeons so large that it darkened the skies for three days. the last US passenger pigeon was named Martha and died in captivity at the Cincinnati Zoo in 1914. my companion the cardinal has become Narcissus. after weeks of bashing himself into my window, he's migrated to the car to contentedly perch for hours and look at himself in rearview mirror: it's not an easy process to undergo--the attaching of one's image to oneself next