New York’s State Bird

New York might have been one of the first states to adopt an official bird after it selected the robin. However, it was never made official.

A new campaign was launched under Mrs. Charles Cyrus Marshall, of the New York State Federation of Women’s Clubs, in 1927-28, still early in the state bird race. This time the robin ran well behind a relative, the eastern bluebird. But the legislature was’t quick to make the bluebird official either.

Many years later, several ornithological groups in central New York wanted to make the bluebird their official state bird. The National Audubon Society had little to say about the bluebird. On the one hand, the eastern bluebird isn’t common in New York and has no special association with the state. On the other hand, bluebirds are pretty and well liked.

The bluebird certainly didn’t impress a New York senator from the Bronx, in New York City. The enormous city boasts countless sparrows and pigeons, but how many city-dwellers have ever seen a bluebird?

Reluctant Winner

Still, the bluebird bill passed 144-1. On May 18, 1970, Governor Rockefeller signed a document naming the bluebird New York’s official state bird. New York was perhaps the last state to adopt an official state bird.

The following July, New York Magazine printed an article that stated, “It is imperative, therefore, that the bluebird be impeached before it becomes entrenched.” Hard put to suggest an alternate candidate that is also a native, the author finally settled on the domestic pigeon.

But the most exciting state birds are sometimes the ones that aren’t too familiar. One author may have been thinking of The Wizard of Oz when he referred to New York’s bluebird as “a rumor in the air.”

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