-- Miscellany --

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1) First, just an oddball article I recently ran across (don't remember seeing before... but then my memory ain't what it used to be) here:

http://tinyurl.com/47tnj7f  

This is just the abstract (I don't have access to full paper), but it reports on a "a new feather mite species" found in "the wing plumage of the ivory-billed woodpecker" --- it was apparently found on some museum specimens. Interestingly, it's from 2004, before the excitement out of Arkansas erupted. Maybe someone can elaborate more on this --- I mean, I'm not clear if the mite has supposedly been living on museum skins for decades unnoticed, or is a more recent inhabitant, and does it have any special significance for the ecology of the Ivory-bill?

2) Outliers: The Ivory-bill's original range, prior to 1900 included the entire American Southeast. Since Tanner's day the prevalence of claims and major searches have tended to focus on parts of a handful of states: South Carolina, Texas, Louisiana, Florida, and more recently Arkansas. Outlying states with but slender areas in the original distribution have received far less (though some) attention: Oklahoma, Tennessee, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky (by 1900, the species was assumed gone from all these states).
 
3) A bit ago I casually posted about an interesting-looking novel entitled "Quick Fall of Light," wherein Passenger Pigeons play a central role, and since then received a nice note from the author. The book looks like an engaging read, and there is a homepage for it here:

http://www.quickfalloflight.com/index.html
 
There is also a nice 'trailer' for the novel on YouTube here:
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbGCB9nkLXQ

4) And just to end on a light-hearted note you can re-visit this oldie-but-goodie contribution (from back when the current IBWO story began) from Tom Toles, perhaps the best political cartoonist ever in the history of the Milky Way Galaxy:

http://tinyurl.com/5t76q8n
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