-- Drone Views From Mike Collins --

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Mike Collins has posted 30 videos (at current count) from drone flights over potential Ivory-bill habitat -- primarily sections of the Pearl River, but a couple of clips from Florida's Choctawhatchee, and a couple from the Apalachicola area (I assume, but don't know, that Mike took all these himself):

http://tinyurl.com/ja78zfa

Very pleasant, even mesmerizing, to watch, though hard to tell if such overview flights could ever give the resolution necessary to permit identification of an Ivory-bill below (unless by sheer chance one flew immediately beneath the drone)... in the 40-or-so random minutes I've viewed I've only seen one bird at all! IF a narrower area of potential IBWO activity was isolated then one can imagine flying the drone lower in a more concentrated way and perhaps picking up activity; also of course the views are better when the foliage is off the trees, as in the sample below:



Anyway, check 'em out for some relaxing viewing.

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-- And the Beat Goes On --

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I’ve been hesitant to link to this since it’s a lot of sound and fury that’s been argued before, but some may want to see it before it fades from view (and they are about to close out the thread), so I’ll note that the birding “ID Frontiers” listserv has had ongoing "discussion" (much of it superfluous) of Mike Collins’ latest piece here:

http://birding.aba.org/maillist/IDF

Mike, as usual attempts to reply to doubters, and interestingly one of the better known critics of Cornell’s original work, Martin Collinson, even weighs in cutting Mike a little slack.

On a separate side-note, Mark Michaels informs followers that Frank Wiley, of their search team, is in a hospital in Louisiana with a systemic infection. Am sure we all wish Frank a full recovery, and his family well:

https://projectcoyoteibwo.com/2017/02/03/frank-wiley-hospitalized/

ADDENDUM 2/5/17:  Sadly, Mark now reports that after taking a turn for the worse yesterday, including emergency surgery, Frank passed on this morning... Condolences to his many friends and family... I'm happy he was one of the recipients of the beautiful Ivory-bill sculptures given out by artist/carver Dean Hurliman... perhaps that piece can hold and represent many memories of Frank's passion, for his loved ones. 
https://projectcoyoteibwo.com/2017/02/05/in-memory-frank-wiley-1962-2017/

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