Reminder-time again: Noel Snyder's new monograph, "An Alternative Hypothesis for the Cause of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker's Decline," ($25) is available here :
http://www.wfvz.org/html/pub_prog.html
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Over the years, living in several different states, and associated with different birding groups, I've regularly run into birders (long before the current IBWO interest) who related stories about seeing possible Ivory-billed Woodpeckers in the 60's or 70's, or knowing other people they trusted who thought they may have seen one. These were all encounters that were never officially turned in to anyone, due to lack of documentation or simple fear of ridicule. It is difficult to know how many such possible claims went unreported prior to the Cornell announcement, but probably in the 100's across the entire Southeast over decades.
Anyway, in that vein, "MMinNY" over at IBWO Searchers Forum has found this simple, pertinent entry (which I'd never seen before) from a Jan. 2002 hunting forum thread (discussing the 1999 Kulivan IBWO sighting), from one "ncboman" --- interesting because it makes reference to Wattensaw (Arkansas) 30+ years before Wattensaw became a sudden center of attention with several sightings claims:
"I still think I may have seen 3 ivory bills in 1973 at a place in Arkansas called Wattensaw? I was over 100 yds. away and could not make a positive ID. Being new to the area, I wasn't sure what was there but I had already seen good numbers of Pileated woodpeckers and I know these birds were different.(the actual thread is archived here, with the above post at bottom of page)
Being young and stupid, I didn't go to them, preferring to stay in my stand. I wish I had checked them out more closely now. "
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