Bird Day
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These are images of "Bird Day" at the original Quentin Roosevelt Elementary School that was located on The Boulevard.
Bird Day and Arbor Day in Carrick
Almost no one has ever heard of “Bird Day.” Celebrated with Arbor Day, the holidays were popular in Carrick thanks to conservationist and Carrick resident John M. Phillips. Mr. Phillips lived in a huge home named Impton where St. Pius X Church is today. Around 1910 both holidays were observed statewide as a way for people, especially school children, to understand conservation with particular attention to the natural world and birds. Harriet Duff Phillips also notes the day in her autobiography.
On Bird and Arbor Days in Carrick school children were instructed and urged to make bird houses with contests sponsored by Mr. Phillips for the best. Hundreds of wren bird houses were constructed from wood, tin cans and garden gourds. School children gathered the gourds in the fall and hung in basements until February to dry. Then a hole the size of a quarter was cut into them, insides tediously scraped out and then shellacked.
Along with the bird houses thousands of Russian Mulberry and Cherry trees were given away by Mr. Phillips. He would teach boys and girls how to plant and prune them, exacting a promise that when the tree began to bear fruit half would go to the birds with the other half for themselves. Now you know why there isn’t a yard in our community without either a mulberry or cherry tree.
