-- Replay --

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For any who may be interested, someone named John Deamond has pieced together this video of various IBWO-related clips (there seems to be no accompanying audio). The first minute-or-so are some very quick clips, mostly zoomed, that have made claims of showing IBWOs (some from YouTube, some from Mike Collins, 1 from Geoff Hill's group). The next 11 minutes are various replayings of the Luneau clip from Arkansas, and the last minute is some superfluous animation:

IBWO Triptych from john deamond on Vimeo.

I don't find anything distinctly helpful or new here, but pass it along in the event others may wish to play with it. Also, don't know any particulars about John's project beyond his own statement that it is "...about extinct birds and how the events surrounding and following their demise reflect issues with how we deal with the natural environment."

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-- Hope (...and Reports) Remains --

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Minnesota birder Jim Williams voices his continued hope for the Ivory-bill in this current short column:

http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/homegarden/blogs/162911316.html

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-- Random Thoughts on a Hot Summer Night --

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Often I let such things go, though sometimes they wear on me a bit… mislabeled pictures of an "Ivory-billed Woodpecker" (with a photo of a Pileated) continually appear on the Web, simply adding to the widespread confusion that stiiiiill exists over these 2 species even after all this time. 

(Ivory-billed Woodpecker... NNNOT!!)

Mislabeled pics on the Web are especially egregious because of the way they are picked up by others and transferred along, so even if the originating site eventually corrects their depiction, the inaccurate picture may have already traveled on, unchecked, repeatedly far and wide. 
Likewise, I've lost track of how many videos on YouTube have appeared claiming "Ivory-billed Woodpecker" for a bird that is clearly something other (and there are other Web video sites that I don't track closely enough to even know how often the same mistake occurs elsewhere).
 It's even more disconcerting that many of these claims emanate from poor habitat or simply inappropriate states (New York, Washington state, Arizona…). Although, most of these cases are probably sincere mistakes, it's also clear that some are instances of prankish individuals wishing only to mess with other people's minds. Getting a good, clear sighting, let alone photo of an Ivory-bill, in good habitat remains a daunting task.

Even National Geographic (a site many would presume credible) for years carried a lead photo of a Pileated Woodpecker above a 2006 Web article on the IBWO search, entitled "The Ghost Bird"… a photo that got picked up and used by others referencing it as an "Ivory-billed Woodpecker." Is it any wonder that IBWOs continue to get ID'd mistakenly in the field by novices and ill-informed individuals, sometimes literally relying on an incorrect picture seen on the Web… or, is it any wonder that others now pretty much automatically dismiss any and all such claims… still, each and every claim and picture coming forth must be looked at individually and adjudged on its own merits… not judged or generalized about on the basis of all that has preceded it.

Science is not (nor ever has been) the pristine activity some uncritically view it as. In recent months many 'scandals' (of varying seriousness) in scientific publications have emerged. One of the most widely followed has been the so-called "arseniclife" or "arsenicgate" story in which a NASA-based study claimed the discovery of a bacterial life-form employing arsenic in the place of phosphorous in its DNA (a monumental biology finding). One likes to imagine that NASA pretty well knows what it's doing scientifically, but following the much-ballyhooed announcement a near immediate firestorm of Internet-generated criticism began throwing cold water on the claims. For now, the original authors continue to defend their results, even while refutations have been published and few seem to take the initial claimants very seriously. 
It is reminiscent of the 1989 Fleischmann/Pons report of creating tabletop cold fusion in the lab, which was likewise quickly shot down by the majority of the scientific community. Mistakes (...or merde ;-)) happen. There have been many instances of fraud in science in recent times; these last two examples aren't instances of that… just mistakes, over-anxiousness, and possibly poor or sloppy science.
 
In some quarters I still see the original Cornell/Nature Conservancy pronouncement of Ivory-billed Woodpeckers in the Big Woods characterized as a "hoax" or "fraud." It is clearly a MIS-characterization (for what, at worst, was weak science), but again, once on the Web it will carry well into the future, to many future newbie students… IF, the IBWO is never confirmed.
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-- Higgs Appears, Bevier Disappears --

(The elusive Higgs Bird, from Chester Reed 

via Wikimedia Commons)

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Happy Holiday! to my US readers… and Happy Higgs Day! to my European readers (and science buffs EVERYwhere!)… now that 'The God Particle' is being confirmed, perhaps the Lord God Bird will follow… ;-)

anyway, just one actual IBWO note of curiosity today:

I recently clicked to Louis Bevier's honed (skeptical) site on the Ivory-bill debate, only to find it gone:

http://web.mac.com/lrbevier/ivorybilled/Overview.html

Having not visited for several months, not sure when it went down, but apparently Apple dropped that particular domain from use at some point. So I surmise that either…

1) Louis, purposely or accidentally, let the site disappear, since he has the hard data and may feel the debate is long-settled, so no need to continue the Website... (or he may be re-working the material to re-post the site).

2) or, if by chance he is planning to publish further, extended material on the matter (in an academic journal), he may have felt no need to keep the Website up-and-running with a more formal publication in the offing.

3) or, he may simply be tired of being associated with the entire IBWO topic at all and moved on.

There are other possible explanations as well I s'pose, so if anyone knows more, or if his site can be found at some new URL, please let us know.
You can, by the way, still find most of the text portions of Bevier's old site via the Internet's Wayback Machine here:

http://tinyurl.com/6omqdkf
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