I wish all of them could come back, but since I have to choose just one, then I choose the most likely to come back, and the most unique(imo) the Passenger Pigeon. Ectopistes migratorius. The previous most plentiful bird species in North America. A changer of ecosystems. A storm of pure life, that soon dissipated to mere memories.
Aldo Leopold wrote: “The pigeon was a biological storm. He was the lightning that played between two opposing potentials of intolerable intensity: the fat of the land and the oxygen of the air. Yearly the feathered tempest roared up, down and across the continent, sucking up the laden fruits of forest and prairie, burning them in a traveling blast of life.” [Sand County Almanac. “On A Monument to the Pigeon”]
(Ectopistses Migratorius)
An American Holocaust
Spring skies; vast tracts of oak;
Blue-gray wings; red breasts with fawn and white
–sweet billions overhead.
Thundering flocks; infinite numbers,
Black with multitudes - 240 miles long;
One mile wide; sometimes 3 days passing
– into the maw of extinction.
Gone forever, September 1, 1914.
J.E. Sutter