-- December Notes --

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Last month, writer Pat Gillum repeated an IBWO tale he told back in 2013 (it's never been clear to me if this is a piece of creative fiction or a true-life story?):

http://foreverahillbilly.blogspot.com/2015/11/conclusion-winter-of-ivory-billed.html

(and Part 1 of the tale is HERE.)

==> ADDENDUM: a reader contacted Pat and received confirmation that the above story actually happened; worth noting it takes place in a locale that, so far as I'm aware, has never received much attention.

Meanwhile, at the Project Coyote website, Mark Michaels puts some flesh on the notion, many of us hold, that Tanner likely underestimated the number of Ivory-bills remaining when he guessed there to be around 22 left in the entire Southeast at the time of his study:

http://projectcoyoteibwo.com/2015/12/14/tanner-and-population-density/

(==> ADDENDUM: Mark has now added another post regarding Tanner's conclusions here:
http://projectcoyoteibwo.com/2015/12/18/not-so-virgin-forest-the-singer-tract-myth-debunked/ )

The one thing I would add is that it is possible for a relatively long-lived creature, as I consider the IBWO to be, to exist in a state of population-equilibrium for long periods of time, neither gaining nor losing numbers (i.e., reproducing at a rate that simply replaces the number dying off). This can't go on for centuries, but for decades yes. Such a small steady-state population may remain few enough to evade detection, yet large enough to sustain itself, occasionally dispersing young to new or adjacent territories. Short of finding a roost or nest hole, dispersing birds are the most likely (though still very rare), to be spotted.

And finally, Chris Carlisle has plenty of scenic pics from one of his recent excursions around Mississippi's Pascagoula WMA:
http://www.ibwos.blogspot.com/2015/12/titan-swamp-and-woodpecker-island-to.html

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