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—there was no dissent from Capitol Hill over Executive Order 1019. Only the Hawaiian rabbit breeders and eggers were up in arms. The territorial governor, Walter Frear of California, likewise had a few grumbles. None of this amounted to more than a few angry letters for public consumption. In 1911 the Field Museum of Chicago sent Charles A. Corwin to the Hawaiian Islands Federal Bird Reservation to inventory species. His report on Laysan Island alone was so impressive that it made national news. “It has been established that the island is inhabited by at least 8,000,000 birds, most of which consist of two species of Albatross,” Corwin wrote in the Christian Science Monitor, a publication that took ornithology seriously. “There were so many birds on the ground, nesting, that we had to crowd our way through to avoid stepping on them…. We can fully verify the stories that these strange birds have a peculiar dance which resembles the cake walk. They clap their bills together and waddle about with high stepping antics, ducking their heads first under one wing, then under the other. All through the dance they whistle and utter weird sounds.”28

With the Hawaii Islands Federal Bird Reserve created, the Biological Survey sent Roosevelt an additional twenty-five bird reservations to sign before March 4. While the reporters were abuzz over Taft’s choices for his cabinet and about the inaugural festivities, the Roosevelt administration would stealthily save birds’ breeding grounds. Unnoticed by the Washington Post and New York Times, the final “I So Declare It” hour had arrived for American ornithologists. Suggestions from Job, Finley, Dutcher, Chapman, Beebe, and other enthusiasts came pouring into the Biological Survey office at the Department of Agriculture. There was a real sense of urgency. On February 25, it virtually rained federal bird reservations in America, and nobody in interregnum Washington had the power to object. For ornithologists of the twenty-first century, these areas are hallowed not only because of their wildlife but also for their green underbrush and marshlands: Salt River (Arizona), Deer Flat and Minidoka (Idaho), Willow Creek (Montana), Carlsbad and Rio Grande (New Mexico), Cold Springs (Oregon), Belle Fourche (South Dakota), Strawberry Valley (Utah), Keechelus, Kachess, Clealum, Bumping Lake and Conconully (Washington), Pathfinder and Shoshone (Wyoming).

What fantastic American names! Stephen Vincent Benét should have written a poem about them. Just reading them aloud is poetry. The two federal bird reservations that the Roosevelt administration likewise created in California were very special, unique in their biodiversity. First, on February 25, came East Park, located in Colusa County an hour north of Sacramento. Here thousands of swans were struggling to coexist with humans around the cool water of a medium-size lake. A very rare tri-color blackbird also used the watering-hole as a home base for much of the year.29 In springtime the rolling hills of East Park bloomed with the rare adobe lily (Fritillaria pluriflora) and residents of Sacramento came to camp along the lake free of charge. In 1921 the Bureau of Reclamation of the U.S. Department of the Interior took over control of East Lake. Nowadays, even with a hydroelectric dam, the thriving birdlife and flower fields remain federally protected.

But the true gemstone of February was the Farallon Islands, a spectacular cluster of rocky islands in the Pacific Ocean twenty-five miles from Golden Gate Bridge. An inventory of wildlife in the Farallons runs for pages. The islands remain the largest nesting colony south of Alaska and the world’s biggest colony of western gulls. Half of the ashy storm petrels continue to reside on these offshore bird rocks. Marine whales congregate around the Farallons, as do southern sea otters, Dall’s porpoises, minke whales, orcas, and northern elephant seals. Every square foot is full of special designs. Although vegetation is limited, there are clusters of pigweed, tree mallow, false clover, plantain, curly dock, and Monterey