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Haven’t talked about IBWO books in awhile, but the topic came up over on FB so, for newbies primarily, will re-state what remain my favorite IBWO volumes (out of the growing number), with the caveat that I do have some problems or issues with most of these:
1) The Ivory-billed Woodpecker — James Tanner
….the classic study that is sort of ‘must’ reading, but which also must be taken cautiously as an old, limited study primarily in a single locale of but a few birds, with conclusions/results that may or may not generalize well today. Important to be familiar with though because of the frequency with which other books will reference it.
2) In Search of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker — Jerome Jackson
….also, a sort of classic at the time it came out by one of the leading experts and defenders of the Ivory-bill (I have one of the first editions, but am guessing that later editions have been brought more up-to-date with some of the newer information and storylines).
3) The Grail Bird — Tim Gallagher
….a fun, interesting read (with some new info) by someone intimately familiar with the Cornell endeavor in the Big Woods of Arkansas.
4) The Race to Save the Lord God Bird — Phillip Hoose
….another fun, great read, with lots of pictures. Hoose is known as a writer for young people, but really this volume is for anyone.
5) The Travails of Two Woodpeckers — Noel Snyder
….a lesser-known volume from a great ornithologist, with a slightly different take on some matters. (The second of the two woodpeckers under discussion is the Imperial of Mexico).
6) Woody’s Last Laugh — J. Christopher Haney
…By far, my favorite volume (if you get and seriously read this one you don’t really need the 5 previous ones!). Not always well-organized, sometimes repetitive, and not without flaws, but easily the best overall compendium of Ivory-bill history and information available — even with more IBWO books likely in the works, I doubt any will surpass this volume for sheer comprehensiveness. SO much information (in both text and footnotes), it is a bit more of a slog to read than the other books, but worth it!
There are plenty of other volumes focused on, or with chapters about, the IBWO, but I don't regard them as foundational as the above works.
Now, for some different entertainment (...and my own oddball reasons), will pass along the below interactive puzzle. It is a weaker takeoff on Andy Naughton’s marvelous, old “Flash Mind Reader” (which I can't find a good working example of on the Web right now)… this one is not as good as Andy's, but operates in same way:
https://www.transum.org/Maths/Investigation/Mind_Reader/
Next, here are several of the optical illusions I have posted on the blog before:
https://twitter.com/Woofkoof/status/1467904569279762440
https://twitter.com/SteveStuWill/status/1117597108259831808
https://twitter.com/Rainmaker1973/status/1467063629564448770
https://twitter.com/TechAmazing/status/1335798167661662212
https://twitter.com/BrianRoemmele/status/1465919065998782469
https://twitter.com/ThePoke/status/820926823479513088
https://twitter.com/SteveStuWill/status/1470506334126628866
https://twitter.com/rajdeep_baral/status/1308711678553415681
https://twitter.com/sinix777/status/1384916614202679298
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWfFco7K9v8
Lastly, almost in a similar vein, here is a recent post of interest from Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/179784035376368/permalink/7342075399147160/?mibextid=c7yyfP
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ADDENDUM 1/15:
More books…:
I tend to approach controversial subjects from a cognitive psychology background so maybe worth citing some of the works I’ve enjoyed that address the way the mind and human thinking works (at the end of his “Woody’s Last Laugh” volume Dr. Chris Haney also offered a brief list of such books, and there are many more currently available for a mass audience). The below is a somewhat eclectic mix of a few I particularly like, in alphabetical order:
A Field Guide to Lies — Daniel Levitin
Beyond the Hoax — Alan Sokal
How Not To Be Wrong — Jordan Ellenberg
How The Mind Works -- Steven Pinker
Language In Thought and Action — S.I. Hayakawa
Mindware — Richard Nisbett
Thinking Fast and Slow — Daniel Kahneman
Thinking 101 —Woo-kyoung Ahn
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