-- Fitzpatrick Talk --

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This article tells a little about the talk Ivory-bill sighter Jim Fitzpatrick gave at the Meadowlands a week ago. One passage caught my eye:

"How the bird survived is the $64,000 question," he said. "The speculation is that while all of the bird's habitat was being removed, parts of the ivory billed woodpecker population were driven into the heart of the big thickets in Texas. There, away from people, it could have been breeding for decades"

I've never heard this "theory" put forth before and don't know where it stems from. Personally, I have some doubts that any Ivory-bills remain in the Big Thicket, but wish this winter's searchers there the best of luck. What seems likely to me is that Ivory-bills have been breeding in Florida, Louisiana, and Mississippi all the while, and surviving along the bottomland river corridor system that links these states (and in many minds, of course, S. Carolina remains highly viable as well). The more intriguing question, by far though, is just how far north (in locales possibly rarely ever searched) might they have established themselves? In that regard folks may want to be on the lookout for an Ohio publication cited in this internet posting which apparently will discuss some of the historical evidence for the Ivory-bill in Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky.
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