— Those Were The Days ;) —

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I’ve been rummaging through old files searching for things (that are shareable) that might be interesting or entertaining to post… I don’t usually share verbatim correspondence at all… but… will make this one, lone exception! In early days I received a number of short scammy, hokey letters that were more annoying than interesting, but late in the process, in 2012, finally got the longest letter... that was a hoot to read!! So much so that I sent it along to a few individuals at the time for their entertainment, and am pretty sure they forwarded it on to some others. So a few of you have seen this long ago, but for the rest of you, enjoy… (I copy it fully verbatim below, but have struck out all name/place identifiers):

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“your website is the first one that came up, it seems pretty extensive and comprehensive. my name is XXXXXX, I am a "homeless" person, sometimes I consider myself that, sometimes I don't. I don't panhandle. but my mom sends me money, and I work a part-time job, but I live in the woods in XXXXXX. I used to live out in the woods in XXXXXX but my wife left me and after I got out of prison I came down here. I have been living in the woods for quite some time.

to make a long story short, I am not really a birder, but if you live out in a tent in a swampy area in XXXXXX, you see a lot of birds. most of the birds I see, I have no idea what they are, that is why I like snakes so much, it is pretty easy to catch snakes. but for awhile, I lived with my wife and kids and we had netflix and I watched the documentary about Ivory bills, and I thought to myself, I have seen those birds out at my camp on a regular basis, I see them in pairs, and sometimes I see them in 2 pairs, a mating couple in one tree and another couple in another tree. I have seen them way more times than I have seen Pileated WP's.

I didn't realize there was such a hoopla about them. To cut right to the chase, I could talk forever since I type really fast and I have nothing better to do, I am going to tell you this. I can't guarantee you that if you came to where I am at, that I could show you a IBW, but what I can guarantee is that I can show you evidence that they have been where I am at very recently, that is 100 percent. and i think you would have a 90 percent certainty of hearing them if you stayed there long enough. I have only seen pileated WP's once, and it was a pair of them. I have seen the IBW's multiple times.

you don't know me from shit. so I will tell you who I am. I used to live in the woods way out in XXXXXX, I was friends with a guy named XXXXXX, who was written about in the book "Coming Into the Country" by John McPhee, I lived for a while in a little town called XXXXXX, not by choice, my wife couldn't handle living out in the bush. If you randomly called people in XXXXXX, you would get a mixed bag of opinions about me, there would be some people that would probably say I was a devil worshipper or something crazy.

regardless, what I am telling you is true. if you want to come to XXXXXX, I will meet you. below are my absolute indisputable conditions and I will not waver on them.

1. you will meet me at a hotel that I choose after you rent a car. I will drive the car and you will have to either be blindfolded or just stare at the floor. I am absolutely not going to tell you where we are going. it won't matter in the end, you are going to figure it out anyway, you aren't a dumbass.

2. I want at least a little bit of money. I don't feel bad about asking that. you try being a homeless person camping out in a tent in a swamp, it is not fun. and you are going to supply me with beer, and I can drink a lot of beer.

3. you can't have a cell phone or a GPS, I am going to search your bags. I have zero doubt in my mind that you are going to figure out where we are at eventually anyway, but I want to trust you. I live in these woods, and when this is all over, I will probably still be living in these woods. I don't want a bunch of jackasses spoiling things for me.

4.If I even vaguely suspect that you tell anyone else about this, you won't ever hear from me again. whether it is you that meets me or someone else, I am one paranoid, suspicious, careful bastard, and I don't give a shit about you or anybody else.

Those are my conditions. my phone # is XXXXXX.”

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No, I never contacted the fellow, so don't know if I missed out on seeing some Ivory-bills, but am pretty sure I missed out on some wonderful beer stories (which I may or may not have lived to tell)..... ;)

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-- Video Re-run --

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I already linked previously to this slowed, frame-by-frame, annotated version of one of Proj. Principalis's drone videos (added: showing 2 birds at one point) that Paul Fischer posted on FB, but will link to its YouTube posting as well (...since I'm a little surprised at how few views it's had on YouTube)... and it can also be enlarged to full-screen:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EEBeo4BhI4

[Fischer did not take this video himself, but simply worked with it.]

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Addendum:

A complete sidenote: since writing last Sunday’s trip-down-memory lane post I’ve been looking up a few other folks who have dropped from the IBWO scene over the years, and the one person I can’t find any updates on is Mary Scott. Mary ran one of the largest, most popular birding sites on the Web, “BirdingAmerica” (now defunct) back in the day, and essentially broke the whole Big Woods Arkansas IBWO story before even Cornell had a chance to announce it, but then eventually disappeared into the ether... So just curious if anyone knows if Mary is still around and if so what’s she up to?

(...no one has responded to this, so I'll add that my own vague memory is that Mary had retired to Arizona, or perhaps New Mexico, and was occasionally leading local birding outings, and avoiding the IBWO debate, but that was over a dozen years ago?)

— 2024… A Notable Year —

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There is so much historical information on the Web (including in prior years on this blog) pertaining to Ivorybill history and searches that I try to now avoid re-treading that material here, letting readers get it from elsewhere. But this is 2024, so worth noting that it’s the 25th year since David Kulivan’s 1999 La. sighting and the 20th anniversary (just passed) of the Gallagher/Harrison Arkansas sighting — perhaps the 2 pivotal events of the modern IBWO saga… almost a bit hard to fathom. 20+ years of hope, anticipation, letdown.

I don’t want to spoil the mood, but will yet again stress why the frustration of this saga proceeds… Somewhere (and likely multiple places) a large, loud species that must search for, and eat, food EVERY single day, must enter and leave cavities EVERY single day, must fly in the open EVERY single day, must (to still be with us) somewhere successfully breed EVERY single year since the 1940s, is somehow evading clearcut photography in a time of huge technological advances — evading even ONE indisputable photo in all that time (and no, it need not be crystal clear; the piss-poor quality of Fielding Lewis’s Brownie camera was adequate for I.D. purposes). You can slap all the numbers and measurements and analysis you want on other evidence, but it just won’t rule out all other possible explanations the way genuine video/photography can. 

For now, the question of the IBWO’s persistence remains for most scientists, but if ever finally documented, the far greater, more interesting/pressing question will be, WHY did it take so long… (most of us already have answers for that and the answers may pertain to any future conservation measures taken).

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— Sunday Navel-gazing —

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Around a week ago I pulled out an old file drawer of IBWO stuff buried in a closet (much of which I actually thought I’d thrown out long ago!), and began reading 15+ year-old back-and-forth correspondence with various key people. So much time, so many discussions/debates have passed. It was fascinating to read things/discussions I hardly remembered ever having (and all the folks who thought this would be easy). But one downer thing that struck me from this trip down memory-lane was that several of these folks have since died (and others have left the IBWO debate altogether in frustration), and even among those still around, many are well over 60 now and who knows how much longer they (and I) will be here. I feel a lot less confident that the Ivorybill will be definitively documented in my (or their) lifetime — we keep doing similar things over and over again and expecting a different result (not that I know any better methodology). Often in some of the correspondence (and elsewhere) someone is voicing the view that documentation is ‘just around the corner’ or surely would come ‘next year’ or within a few months… and 15+ years later here we are still always turning new corners! ...forever sounding exaggerated (or, to the skeptics, delusional) in how close we are :(( A small smattering of people seriously looking for a needle in a vast haystack, analyzing the heck out of any scrap of evidence to come forth (and not-so-oddly reaching whatever conclusion they had basically started with).

Anyway, March arrives soon and hey, once again juvenile Ivory-billed Woodpeckers could thereafter be emerging from nestholes and foraging with their parents in remote vast places before leaves return to the trees, but will anyone be there, in the right place at the right time, to see and photograph them? Anyone???

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— Quick Note — +Addenda

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Like so many others, I’ve now abandoned Twitter and Musk’s mismanagement, and am moving to Jack Dorsey’s Bluesky platform where I am:

@cyberthrush.bsky.social

Bluesky is still getting revved up (but it looks to eventually be the biggest, most-active alternative to Twitter), and birding posts for now are still on the light side compared to Twitter (I refuse to call it “X” ;) Don’t know how much I’ll even use it near-term, but if I encounter really significant IBWO news will likely post it there, before getting written up for the blog.

Addendum:  as long as I’m passing along notes, Mark Michaels has his first brief blog post up since seeing the 16-min. indie film on him, “American Grail,” at the Big Sky film festival (Missoula, MT.):

https://projectcoyoteibwo.com/2024/02/18/update-from-big-sky/

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ADDENDUM2:

Don't want to start a new post yet, so will just add here that Paul Fischer has posted an annotated frame-by-frame version of one of the Proj. Principalis La. drone videos on Facebook (involving 2 birds):

https://www.facebook.com/paul.fischer.52/videos/1597031354368474?idorvanity=179784035376368

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-- Celebrating Amateurs... --

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Hahhh…. I’ve often enjoyed Jack Hitt’s stories on NPR’s “This American Life” and in the New Yorker, and mostly enjoyed a book he did several years back, “Bunch of Amateurs” (involving how cults of amateurs get involved in various mysteries) which included a chapter on the quest for the Ivory-billed Woodpecker -- a chapter I was somewhat less enthused about. Anyway, I recently stumbled across ABA birder (and IBWO-searcher) Rick Wright’s 11-year-old review of it, and thought, ‘wow, how did I miss this, it’s a great review’… only to reach the end and find that MY own comment was the first one listed! 

https://blog.aba.org/2013/02/hitt-bunch-of-amateurs.html

I don’t remember writing this, but chuckle at how much I still agree with it, and ‘amateurs’ may still be the ones with the most time, opportunity, and inclination to find the IBWO... moreover, additionally today they have access to more technology and ‘professional’ tools and networking to perhaps make it happen.

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-- GISS Birding -- +Addenda

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Quick apology to long-time readers that I keep re-hashing things already discussed here long ago... 

Have been reading and enjoying Malcolm Gladwell’s 20-year-old bestseller, “Blink,” basically about what I often call “intuition,” though he mostly calls it the subconscious, and several more recent volumes use yet other terminology for the same subject -- it all reminds me of an aspect of birding, essentially done rapidly at a subconscious level, which is even briefly cited in Gladwell’s volume.

Anyway, first, two illustrative experiences from decades ago in my own birding life:

1)  Once when much younger I was with a very experienced birder when I pointed out a large-ish black speck in the distance, saying that it might be interesting… he looked at it for probably less than 2 seconds before saying, “oh, it’s a Turkey Vulture”… I was pretty surprised at the time, and inquired, “You can tell from here that it’s a vulture and not a hawk?” and he responded, “well, yeah”… I continued, “and I suppose you’re guessing it’s a Turkey Vulture just because they’re so much more common here than Black Vultures.” I think he was a tad insulted, and replied “No, not guessing, it IS a Turkey Vulture” and then he explained the basic and few traits he was seeing, even at great distance, that clearly defined it as that species and no other; traits that registered on his mind immediately (...and now do on mine as well).

2)  Some years later I was on an outing, carpooling with birders and as we drove down a road adjacent to a hedgerow, one of the most experienced in the group suddenly shouted out, “Whoa! stop the car, Orange-crowned Warbler!”… the car stopped, we backed up and everyone got looks of a very nondescript, smallish, Orange-crowned Warbler foraging through the hedge, just feet in front of us, through a cluster of leaves (an uncommon bird for our area), but how the spotter had recognized it in such a fleeting moment he couldn’t even explain, except that 90+% of all warbler (and other) species were immediately ruled out in his mind in that quick glance leaving only a few options.

What I’m referencing here is often called the “GISS” or “jizz” of a bird — GISS for ‘general impression of size and shape” though even more characteristics, like flight-style/movement and colors, may also be involved — and it is how a great deal of field birding is actually done by experienced birders… and done successfully in but split seconds! Rather than looking for a myriad of details or wordy field marks noted in a field guide, a more overall ‘gestalt’ experience with the bird is enough to ID it accurately.

Pete Dunne, one of my favorite birders, has written extensively on it (especially in his wonderful "Essential Field Guide Companion"). I don’t know what his current attitude is toward the IBWO (HEY Pete, chime in if you care to! ;), but he was one of the few “name” birders who, early on, stuck his neck out to voice support for the claims Cornell made in the Big Woods. He recognizes (as do I) the power of “sightings” coming from multiple experienced birders versus the constant mantra of skeptics that, well, everybody makes mistakes on occasion (and granted, my cognitive psychology background also lets me appreciate that view!).

Skeptics will say, GISS is fine-and-dandy, but you can only have it with birds with which you have familiarity or experience… and NO ONE living today has such experience with the Ivory-billed Woodpecker, so there is no GISS for IBWOs. But this isn't entirely true, for like my second example above, GISS also allows you to ELIMINATE choices in an instant, and in the instance of an Ivory-bill there may only be a few possibilities needing elimination before IBWO is the one remaining (also, past descriptions of IBWOs, as well as the Singer Tract videos do allow for some GISS characteristics). Yes, mistakes can still be made (especially by inexperienced observers) or there may be genetically mis-plumaged birds, but plenty of claims remain that are difficult to discount easily other than by the fallacy of ‘overgeneralization’ — i.e., 90+% of past claims have proven bogus, therefore this claim is surely bogus.

Sometimes I almost feel like the entire IBWO debate boils down to the "all people make mistakes, and thus ALL IBWO sightings are mistaken" crowd versus the "experienced people can ID this species in an instant and on at least some occasions have" crowd. (There are though other categories: people of less experience but claiming lengthier or better views of the bird, and still others claiming deep analysis of video or auditory evidence confirms its existence, apart from sightings.) Anyway, the same birders who readily accept GISS birding when it suits their purposes, challenge it when it doesn't suit their narrative.

I've written of GISS birding several times in the past (so I already know how cynics will respond to all this), but will end with a David Sibley quote, that I've used before, and is included in "Blink" (though, in fairness to David, I know he would say that what applies to "most of bird identification" does not apply to the unusual cases of especially rare birds):

"Most of bird identification is based on a sort of subjective impression — the way a bird moves and little instantaneous appearances at different angles and sequences of different appearances, and as it turns its head and as it flies and as it turns around, you see sequences of different shapes and angles…

"All that combines to create a unique impression of a bird that can’t really be taken apart and described in words. When it comes down to being in the field and looking at a bird, you don’t take the time to analyze it and say it shows this, this, and this; therefore it must be this species. It’s more natural and instinctive. After a lot of practice, you look at the bird, and it triggers little switches in your brain. It looks right. You know what it is at a glance."

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ADDENDUM:

This is off-topic, and I normally wouldn't bother pointing to it, but someone just sent it my way, and it does illustrate the craziness in the internet birding world these days (not just the IBWO arena), and hey, maybe someone out there wants to sleuth around and figure out who Jason Mann is!?:

https://gallusrostromegalus.tumblr.com/post/742167775331614720

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ADDENDUM2 2/16:

As long as I'm citing non-IBWO stuff this also is too good not to pass along:

On Facebook Sean Tuttle posts this wonderful, inspiring 1/2 hour film on conservation efforts for the Red-cockaded Woodpecker:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYcly7FSC9I

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— A Question For Any Tanner Experts —

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On the off-chance someone may have a sense of this, will toss out a question I once had but then failed to ever pursue:

For his multi-year study of Ivorybills Tanner spent a very few days in a great many locales (in addition to his lengthy time at the Singer Tract), but even when there had been rumors of IBWOs elsewhere he would often emerge pessimistically saying that he saw no foraging work that would be indicative of IBWO presence (let alone seeing or hearing the species), and therefore concluded the species was not present. (because presumably the birds have to eat every day ;))

So I’m wondering how much vigorous ground-searching (in terms of time/hours) Tanner thought was adequate, finding NO IBWO-like work, to reach such a conclusion… 5 hrs? 10 hrs.? 20 hrs. or more? How often was he seeing fresh tree work at the Singer Tract, where he pretty well knew the locations and travels of a few IBWOs? Every day or couple of days? In short, how much time should a modern-day searcher expect to spend in a given locale before seeing potential IBWO foraging IF the birds are there (or, in reverse, after how many hours of searching should one be discouraged if encountering NO such foraging evidence?).  Granted it will depend somewhat on the size and habitat of the locale, but nonetheless Tanner dismissed fairly quickly some rather large areas.

Perhaps those too who took part in the larger-scale Big Woods and Choctawhatchee searches could say/guesstimate how often interesting bark-scaling was being seen in those studies? 

If you have an answer, or at least a thought, feel free to write in "comments" below or send directly via email (if you don't wish to appear in 'comments').

p.s.... will just add that even if Tanner had a strong notion of how many hours spent in an area seeing no physical evidence of IBWOs were adequate to conclude they weren't present, it doesn't mean he was right!

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— Why Sound Evidence Is Not Sound! —

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Been a lot of time spent on auditory evidence lately which I almost never link to (my view of auditory evidence has been consistent over the last 18 years) -- it won't move the needle forward for skeptics, who view such evidence as “stringing” people along — and I try these days to focus on evidence that skeptics may find of interest (because in the end they must be persuaded). So a few things:

1)  First, if you haven’t already seen Chuck Hunter’s response to recent views of Mark Michaels see his postings here (which cover some of what I’ll be saying, but with more specifics):

https://www.facebook.com/groups/179784035376368/posts/7439564326064933/?comment_id=7440282235993142&mibextid=c7yyfP

https://www.facebook.com/groups/179784035376368/posts/7439564326064933/?comment_id=7440308122657220&mibextid=c7yyfP

2)  Kents and DK sounds are HIGHLY simple, generic sounds with many sound-alikes in nature from both animals and potential artificial sources. Kents/DKs are not more complex, unique birdsongs or calls as say from a White-eyed Vireo, a Barred Owl, a wren, a Chat, or 100s of other species, so while “earbirding” certainly makes sense in a great deal of birding, it is of uncertain, strained use in the IBWO debate.

3)  The true sample size of IBWO sounds is MINISCULE and recorded on antiquated equipment, possibly producing artifacts that I’m not confident we fully comprehend (though maybe experts do?). There are NO recordings of IBWO DKs at all to go by— zilch — I’ll grant that recordings of other Campephilus DKs (of which there are plenty) are probably adequate for drawing conclusions about IBWO DKs — except that again we have little idea of the range and variability specific to IBWO, which given the generic nature of DKs, makes them hard to generalize about.

4)  The only kent samples we have of IBWOs come from one small set of birds in one place at one time, 80+ years ago — again no good sense of the variability for this species (although there are historically verbal descriptions of different types of kent calls from IBWOs) — in this regard it is interesting how when a putative kent call spectrograpically matches the original Cornell Singer Tract recordings researchers are quick to point that out, but when the match is not as great they fall back on the excuse that the Singer birds were recorded when “agitated” and the call at rest is different — it’s a perfectly plausible explanation, but it also comes off as a case of pounding a square peg into a round hole (or selecting whatever explanation suits one's case in the moment). In short, we don’t have good recordings of enough certain IBWO calls to draw any firm conclusions — and NO, one CANNOT simply assume that calls recorded in the Big Woods, or Choctaw or Pearl or Big Thicket… or… or… emanated from Ivorybills when the presence of the species was never confirmed (lumping all these together may be lumping together apples and oranges until truly shown otherwise)… nor can one assume that ALL other possible sound candidates for such simple sounds have ever been considered or are even known. Sample size is important, and we truly DON'T have it here.

5)  Also, commonly dismissed is the notion of other IBWO searchers in the woodland generating kent or DK sounds that are then picked up by a different group of searchers — unlikely perhaps, but by no means dismissible! (and perhaps no more “unlikely” than hearing IBWOs is!). Anyone who thinks that the only people searching for IBWOs are the few folks reporting on the Web is living in their own self-contained bubble and doesn’t realize how many other individuals, using unknown techniques, are on occasion venturing into remote woodland to search for America’s most iconic species. (…and those are sincere people, let alone any pranksters who deliberately venture to woodland, to make noises solely to befuddle IBWO enthusiasts). Folks are too easily rushing to dismiss the unlikely... when in fact simply encountering the IBWO is itself highly unlikely!...

6)  Again, Ivorybill searchers continually preach to the choir within their own self-contained bubble with evidence often presented by just one person — someone who has already fully-committed to a stance of IBWO persistence and will be perceived, rightly or wrongly (by doubters), as biased or otherwise non-credible. Anyone who is already committed to IBWO persistence who analyzes say, the Luneau video or Mike Collins’ “underflight” video, will be seen as a ‘wishful’ thinker with self-fulfilling analysis and NOT be taken seriously. Instead, such analysis needs to include a co-author who is neutral or even skeptical yet agrees with the writer’s conclusions — and the problem there is that so many neutral/skeptical folks have left the arena wanting to avoid the IBWO debate (it literally could hurt their career!). Hearing the same people, or sort of people, tout the same evidence or sort of evidence over and over and over again has not moved us forward much.

In short, I find recordings of distant kents and DKs verrry problematic, with questionable assumptions made or left unstated. Those (few) that come in direct conjunction with good sightings (almost all of which are brief) are at least somewhat more interesting, but then again comes the endless question of why in 80+ years no active nesthole, roosthole, foraging site, or adequate photo/video has emerged following such evidence… and there too, multi careful-analyses, over decades, of cavities and foraging work, like multi-analyses of kents/DKs, have FAILED to lead us to a single live bird.

Despite the successful degree to which earbirding is utilized for bird counts, bird atlases, eBird, etc. (i.e., common birds), the gold standard by far in the controversial IBWO debate will remain visual evidence.

ADDED:  just to be clear, I’m not arguing that auditory evidence is of no value or should not be submitted and reviewed, but simply that it doesn’t carry the weight for me that others are wanting to give it. I recall certain of Cornell’s Big Woods’ recordings sounding dead-on to my ears as IBWO kents (and even some significant skeptics were impressed by those at the time!) — but those alone would not persuade me of Ivorybill presence there (other evidence did). 

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-- Just Another List --

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Sometimes I get asked what would it take to convince me that IBWOs are actually extinct… so I’ll pass along yet another re-work of a very old post/list from 17+ years ago:

10 things that would make me re-consider the possibility that IBWOs are really extinct:

10. A snowball makes its way through Hell unscathed...

9. Gene Sparling, Tim Gallagher, and Bobby Harrison  finally confess that their whole storyline and sightings were a hoax dreamed up following a 5th round of Tequila Sunrises in a local Little Rock bar & grill.

8. Someone finds an Ivory-bill hanging in the woods with a note that reads, "Good-bye cruel world, I was the very last of my kind."

7. New, advanced genetic techniques prove once-and-for-all that Ivory-billed Woodpeckers NEVER actually existed to begin with, but were merely the hybrid offspring of Pileateds and Imperials hooking up on Friday nights.

6. Pileated Woodpeckers finally admit to pranking foolish, naive birders by dressing up as Ivory-bills and swooping through Southern hardwoods (after a few too many fermented berries).

5. At the next A.O.U. meeting, Cornell announces that they have documented a small population of Moas residing deep in the heart of Staten Island (...though the videotape is a tad fuzzy).

4. I’m informed that, unbeknownst to most northerners, a longstanding, fun pastime of southern youngsters, is constructing and flying paper-mache models of Ivory-billed Woodpeckers in their local woods.

3. It’s discovered that 97% of ALL participants on social media discussing Ivory-bills heatedly back-and-forth are actually just aliases of some bloke named Fred.

2. An unannounced raid of David Sibley's painting studio by Federal agents finds shelves and shelves and shelves of stuffed Ivory-billed Woodpecker carcasses with time, date, and place of collection meticulously recorded… BUT, none more recent than Sept.,1982.

1. Newly-released classified government documents (from Julian Assange) reveal that the "Birds aren't real" movement is 100% true!!

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