— My Biggest Big Woods Disappointment —

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I can accept the possibility that human beings are such bumbling clods that they can’t in 80 years go into deep woods and get a single clearcut photo or video of an Ivory-billed Woodpecker… maybe. But cameras aren’t human, just mere mechanical tools that don’t tire, get distracted, hungry or fatigued, aren’t scared of crocs or snakes or spiders, etc. They do have mechanical problems/failures but otherwise just sit there doing their job, hour-after-hour, day-after-day without complaint. So (reiterating what I’ve written before) the hardest bit to explain in this long endeavor is why no remote, automatic camera, trained on an interesting cavity, tree, foraging spot, has EVER captured a clearcut Ivorybill? All the talk of Ivorybills being wary and strong flyers and having long fleeing distances etc.etc. is fine for explaining why they elude paltry humans, but not necessarily to explain how they avoid automatic cameras (though some postulate the cameras themselves simply scare the birds away).

My greatest hope (and in the end disappointment) in this area came when Cornell deployed the ACONE camera system in the Arkansas Big Woods (a new system of computerized cameras that automatically scanned a broad flyway, and ID’d birds passing through it that fit characteristics of an IBWO). Everyday presumably IBWOs not only forage and enter/leave cavities, but also FLY from point A to point B… if that includes traveling through a wide open area then by gosh what a far greater opportunity to catch one on film. And yet, zippo!! No solid hits with ACONE (perhaps THIS was their most interesting image). The system had a lot of practical problems (it may have even been functionally down more time than it was running), but it still seemed like a great idea even if used erratically -- again, ONE clear picture is all we want for starters (…unless IBWOs had already departed from the area, or even died, by the time ACONE was employed, or alternately, simply never used that flight path?)

Since the Big Woods search ended, improvements have been made in ACONE-type hardware/software, but they aren’t cheap, and I’m not aware of such a system being used to look for IBWOs anywhere else (if someone knows differently please do tell, and this type system has been used for other things).

For explanation of such failures, the main argument that we believers really have left to hang our hat on is (as many have stated) the sheer scarcity of this species combined with the size and remoteness of habitat it favors. As they say, we are not just looking for a needle in a haystack, but for a moving needle (that may be actively trying to avoid us) in a hard-to-penetrate haystack... stiiiiiiiill, are we putting cameras in all the wrong places for them to fail so consistently... with the exception of those instances where the problem is resolution and interpretation. All of which raises in turn the issue of how (mathematically) did such an exceedingly rare critter ever get through a possible ‘bottleneck’ of the 1940s to still even be around today. We walk a tight thread: there must be enough IBWOs to reproduce and hang on for 80 years, but not enough to be photographed well in that entire time period.  Again, explanations are possible, but it does seem as if they require the sun and moon to line up just so, in some precise chancy way, to account for all the nuances…. then again, on occasion, the sun and moon DO line up to produce a solar eclipse, one of the most incredible, awe-inspiring sights in all of nature. So, there’s that ;))

These days technology keeps rapidly advancing…. there’s use of eDNA in the field, advanced drone capabilities, better, smaller cameras, but I'd still love to see a working ACONE-type system brought back into use somewhere (by now it might even be less cost-prohibitive than previously); at least the theory behind it seemed very promising.

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And to end with some miscellany, 2 bits referenced on Facebook:

1)  A map/story of the “world’s 36th Biodiversity Hotspot… the North American Coastal Plain” which eerily coincides closely with the former range of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker:

https://www.cepf.net/stories/announcing-worlds-36th-biodiversity-hotspot-north-american-coastal-plain?fbclid=IwAR28LgK4mQoBn1MH65axl37KKOS9qmZMg8hZ9rsOUMTGcbQdmUS3iCpmtDY

2)  And lastly there are tons of Ivorybill artwork out there which I don't usually call attention to, but, to end on a bright note, I was gobsmacked by these two recent examples over on FB:

a) a lifesize taxidermy-constructed female Ivorybill (posed on a tree here) from artist Wilhelm Goebel. Stunning!!

https://www.facebook.com/groups/179784035376368/permalink/7264176590270375/?mibextid=c7yyfP

b)  and, sort of at the other end of the spectrum, this miniature carving from Keith Mueller:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/179784035376368/permalink/7269904446364256/?mibextid=c7yyfP

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