-- Alabama etc. --

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Recent post at the Facebook Ivory-bill group page touts Alabama’s  possibly under-emphasized potential for IBWO presence:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/179784035376368/permalink/3729098973778172/

The specific article that is being referenced is here:

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-11-29/mobile-river-biodiversity-extinctions-alabama?fbclid=IwAR1P68xAtSM9g1b-P8w9xUKI0_Uj-ySRckJ78Y5LfENyRBEXXj5teGBSSmM

The article doesn’t really stress how much of the area has been cut over at one time or another, nor how fragmented parts of it are.  With that said, over the years I have several times cited Alabama as an overlooked region for IBWO investigation. And Bill Pulliam in his old blog did as well here: 

http://bbill.blogspot.com/2006/03/alabama.html

…as I once wrote about part of the area:

“The area falls nicely between the Florida Panhandle and the Pascagoula region of Mississippi if one cares to think in terms of a Gulf corridor for the species (which can stretch on to Louisiana's Pearl, and of course eastward to Florida's Apalachicola/Chipola).”

....As long as I’m posting will mention a couple of other things by way of catch-up for anyone who may have missed them:

1)  Matt Courtman, active Louisiana birder and IBWO searcher, was written up in this piece not long ago:

https://www.thehawkeye.com/story/lifestyle/2020/11/16/52-faces-leopold-house-guest-matt-courtman-seeks-near-mythical-woodpecker/6254228002/?fbclid=IwAR0sa-q_gjdRp8VLPFDkhMchbfOJbqFfBhKekEdc2U-MyY8ZvqT4kvy1uwo

2)  and indefatigable Mike Collins put out another re-hash of his arguments in this November, 40+ min. video “Debunking the Critics”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIT5Kw_sY0E

Once again, he gains no traction with his critics as shown in 12 pages of discussion/commentary that followed at the BirdForum website:

https://www.birdforum.net/threads/ivory-billed-woodpecker-debunking-the-critics.396701/

So again we approach the winter months, when any Ivory-bills ought be courting, calling out, and seeking nest sites, carrying on amidst bare trees, easier to spot than at any other time of the year (and before they actually go to nest)... but, will anything come of it. Or just deja vu all over again....

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