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Renowned birder Kenn Kaufman attempts a fair-minded answer to the question of the Ivory-bill's existence:
https://www.audubon.org/news/ask-kenn-kaufman-ivory-billed-woodpecker-extinct
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ADDENDUM: In a comment below “John” references a graph of Hz levels for IBWO kents that didn’t make it into his comment. Here is the graph (and I assume this is based on the IBWO calls recorded by Cornell originally at the Singer Tract, but I'm not clear since it specifically references Mennill/Proj.Coyote data):
4 comments:
Something interesting for our readers, and reflective of our changing times. Data on the IBWO is important. Imagine how difficult it would be for me to publish what I'm about to show, in Nature, or The Auk for example. I'm not going through all that-- Mike Collins showed this to be so difficult and contentious. So, it's here on Facebook. Does that make it less scientific? No. Less "peer-reviewed"? Who exactly are the peers? Does it make it less read by ornithologists, or searchers, who might have an interest and ability to act on the information? Well... not sure. More and more, they are congregating here. So, less important here than in The Auk? Hard question.
A while ago I put all the IBWO kent sounds into a graphic organizer to see if there were patterns to the frequencies used. There were, and this is interesting. Attached is the graph again. A couple of days ago, I got the idea to compare these with similar sounds (kent-like) from the Red-breasted, White-breasted, and Brown-headed Nuthatches.
Using XenoCanto and 3-7 samples for each species, here are their approximate frequencies, +/- 10 Hz using the website Online Tone Generator, when making kentlike sounds--
RBNH-- 500,530,500,515,525,520
WBNH-- 589,700,645
BHNH-- N/A, they do not kent
Might be useful to compare with kent recordings. WBNH have more of the overlap, but anything between 650 and 750... ? And Bluejays can (only?) overlap above 800 Hz-- a number of researchers have pointed this out.
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We are able to be peers. We need more info and basic organization on this research/info.
An abstract is obviously needed. And conclusions. More than 3-7 audio samples are required to be of any real value if you are strongly claiming something; small present sample size is not large, its minute and anecdotal.
Number of potentially different IBWOs is paper is also needed.
tks
Bird
Bird,
I want to clarify that the tone of this posting was not to try to get the info into a peer-reviewed journal, but championing "amateur science" which is now in the form of Facebook. And since it's just a graph, I am letting the viewer make their own conclusions. Small sample size yes, but this is the IBWO, and the graph shows some pattern which I am sure is new information. The only other sounds I might have added that are generally agreed to be IBWOs are the Allen-Kellogg recordings. These are thought to be agitated birds; the sounds were also observed by Collins.
Transcendentalism is an important component for many involved in conservation and an appreciation of nature.
Many pivotal and famous figures would not condone doing little for the IB. They wouldn't join in with the somewhat or entirely for some, hedonistic, chant that "we chase the IB because its fun".
What would Emerson and Henry David Thoreau who argued against the status quo and group think say about individuals that chase the Ib with the same methods over and over and produce nothing but alleged happiness for themselves?
They were critical of society for its unthinking conformity. Doing the same thing over and over is supportive of the bleaker Puritan picture of complete and inescapable human depravity.
Tks sj
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