-- May The Sightings Begin --

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Report from the Pearl (La.): Mike Collins, back in the Pearl for Ivory-bill documentation, reported the sighting of a male IBWO today by his colleague, birder Susan Epps, in the same area where he claimed a male two months ago.
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-- Some Timeless Wisdom ; - ) --

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In the spirit of the season thought I might just quote a few lines from the famous letter written by a newspaper editor in 1897 to a young girl who's 'little friends' informed her there was no Santa Claus:

"Dear Virginia:

Your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except what they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men's or children's, are little.
In this great universe of ours, man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge..."

...Oh, and yes Virginia, there ARE Ivory-bills as well; don't let little minds tell you otherwise.
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-- Curiouser and Curiouser --

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Now even Cornell, on their website, is directly linking to the recent AR. sighting claim (previous post).
In their final report on last year's search they acknowledge 14 sightings (and there were almost certainly more than this) which they held a lid on during the search season, specifically not wanting to publicize encounters until the search season ended. For some reason this recent, seemingly routine encounter, gets nationwide publicity and a nod from Cornell. Is it just a morale-booster, or again, do they have details not released to the public that make it worthy of such emphasis? While the story is popular in the press, it has received no traction or follow-up on the Arkansas birding listserv. Curious...?
It is of course vital to get a handle on the Arkansas IBWO population, but again, it is likely minor relative to the species' numbers in several other states.
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-- AR. Story --

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For some reason a recent Ivory-bill sighting by two government workers in Arkansas (in the Cache River area) is getting a lot of press/internet play. The details, as given, don't appear much better than any number of other sightings from the last year that didn't garner much publicity:

http://www.physorg.com/news85470425.html

They are claiming a female bird (which is significant), and the sighting does include the specific tree the bird was working on prior to flight, which opens the remote possibility of a feather or droppings being found, or gouges/scrapings left behind for measurement, but otherwise it's unclear why this particular sighting is getting such coverage (is Cornell 'pushing' it?). Possibly there are other, thus far unreleased details, or more likely the press is simply running with it due to hunger in some circles for positive Ivory-bill news. But hey, there is plenty of time ahead for that...
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-- Jackson Suggests Suwannee --

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Jerry Jackson pushes the Suwannee River (north Florida), one of the many oft-mentioned Fl. rivers, as especially good habitat for Ivory-bills here:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/12/061215-woodpecker.html

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--- Time-out ---

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Intermission (grab some popcorn and a soda)... or, as Monty Python might say, 'now for something totally different' --- just a couple of sentences offered for the sheer entertainment of a few, and (....probably???) not at all IBWO-related :

In the next sentence, the number of occurrences of 0 is 1, of 1 is 7, of 2 is 4,
of 3 is 1, of 4 is 1, of 5 is 1, of 6 is 1, of 7 is 1, of 8 is 2, and of 9 is 1.

In the previous sentence, the number of occurrences of 0 is 1, of 1 is 8, of 2 is 2,
of 3 is 1, of 4 is 2, of 5 is 1, of 6 is 1, of 7 is 2, of 8 is 1, and of 9 is 1.

or alternatively, this one:

This sentence has three a's, one b, two c's, two d's, twenty nine e's, seven f's,
two g's, five h's, nine i's, one j, one k, one l, one m, twenty one n's, fourteen o's,
five r's, twenty five s's, seventeen t's, four u's, six v's, eight w's, two x's, and four y's.

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-- The Mobile Search Team --

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Cornell's 4-man "mobile search team" is giving regular updates on their current exploratory activity in South Carolina, where they are scheduled to search through the first week of January :

http://www.birds.cornell.edu/ivory/current0607/MSTtravellog/document_view

and info on these and other members of the "search/recovery" team is here:

http://www.birds.cornell.edu/ivory/current0607/0607searchteam/document_view#MST1

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-- Big Woods Summary --

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I don't find much encouraging in Cornell's overdue final summary of last season's Big Woods search. Indeed one is almost left to wonder if the report's very late public release has anything to do with fears that earlier publication would've discouraged applications from new volunteers for the coming search season (but maybe I'm being too negative)??? Remote, automatic camera setups at promising cavities and foraging sites (one of the best hopes for evidence-gathering) captured only an array of Pileateds, other birds, and mammals, and no hint of IBWO. I've always found recorded acoustic evidence problematic and less than convincing, and there are but glimmers of it here (of both 'kent' calls and 'double-knocks'), as well as the usual glimmers of possible sightings. One can find nuggets of optimism if one so chooses, but the overall general weakness of findings will fuel increasing doubts.

The most encouraging factor to me is simply that only around 12% of the Big Woods was studied; yet even this is tempered somewhat, in looking at the Cornell maps, by seeing that the searched sites actually sample a wide range of areas throughout the Big Woods region (not just concentrated on a couple of southerly honed-in-on spots). Still, there is much groundwork left to be done.

I am glad that a systematic second search season is now underway in the Big Woods, but understand why many will be shifting their interest and focus to other areas (Fl., La., Ms., remain the Ivory-bill's most likely hangouts, or S.C./Tx. according to some) --- and Cornell's efforts have been instrumental in inspiring/planning many of the other searches.

At the very least it seems increasingly unlikely that any sort of significant population of the birds, as many originally hoped, will be found in the Big Woods; a few stragglers or isolated cases possibly being the best one can hope for at this point, and if they're not documented this search season most agnostics/fence-post sitters will no doubt fall to the skeptical side, at least for Arkansas.
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-- Final Cornell 2005-6 Summary --

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Cornell's final summary report of their 2005-6 search season in AR. is finally available (pdf) here:

http://www.birds.cornell.edu/ivory/current0607/FinalReportIVBWOO.pdf

Haven't finished reading it yet... may or may not have more to say about it in days ahead. For now I'll just say, better late than never...
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-- The "60 Year" Blip --

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I still hear from folks who consider the 60-year lapse in confirmed Ivory-bill presence some sort of significant number, so I'll repeat:

1. There have been 100's of reports/claims of Ivory-bills over those years. If you choose not to believe any of them, that's YOUR choice, but don't pretend 60 years have passed with no reports of Ivory-bills.

2. EVEN if we had gone 60 years without a single IBWO claim, how many times need I say it --- 60 years is NOT necessarily a meaningful period of time in the natural history of a species; it ISN'T, it's NOT, it never has been... It is simply naive, shallow, and hubris-bound to believe that something can't exist just because it's gone unseen by human eyes for 60 years. THIS is science based on FAITH (in human capability; usually considered imperfect) and nothing more.

3. The efforts to find Ivory-bills the last 60 years have been puny --- mostly one or two-man searches for a weekend or a week in very limited areas prior to year 2000. The much-vaunted LSU/Pearl search (2002, almost 3 FULL YEARS after Kulivan's claim) was still but a small team effort for a month in one locale of one state of one area of the Southeast. Last year's Cornell search, another 5 mos. or so in one area. If you string all the serious searches of the last 60 years together end-to-end what do you have, 3, maybe 4 years worth of well-organized meaningful searching in a few parts of a vast amount of difficult habitat... and THIS is s'posed to be definitive? Thankfully, such laxity doesn't hold forth in the physical and engineering sciences; only in biology or medicine would such definitive statements arise from such limited data.

John Fitzpatrick of Cornell says, "Searching for the Ivory-billed Woodpecker has finally blossomed into a long-overdue, systematic national effort spanning all the big forests of the Southeast where the species could persist." And Ron Rohrbaugh adds, "We'll never know if ivory-bills persist outside of Arkansas unless we undertake systematic searches of key areas, a task that should have been done decades ago." Ahhh yes, looking for a bird where it might perchance hang out before guessing it to be extinct --- an insightful idea and scientific approach that many fail to grasp.

When all such areas have been fully explored, or when 100 years have passed with no credible sightings, I'll pay heed and take note of it; until then, I'll give as much attention to those who trumpet "60 years" as a loooong time as I give to those who believe the planet is less than 10,000 years old and all claims to the contrary are based on shoddy misreading of the geological record.

Happy weekend all!
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-- Mississippi ? --

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Cornell mentions Mississippi among the states with upcoming, organized IBWO searches that they are assisting. Mississippi is certainly one of the states most likely harboring Ivory-bills, yet this is the first I've heard of official organized searching there. I'm aware individuals are searching on their own in MS. but can anyone fill me in (preferably via email) on what more official or systematic endeavors are being made???
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-- Of Ivory-bills and Vegans --

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Over the years I've known several people who became vegetarians or even vegans after eating and enjoying meat for 30-40 years and even thinking meat was necessary for their health. In actuality, many things that we think of as necessary in life are in fact little more than ingrained preferences, that we can easily live without.

In biology much is made of the notion of specialist versus generalist species. But this is just a human construct and a false black-and-white dichotomy. ALL creatures are specialists in some sense, it is only a matter of degrees. Indeed, pigeons and starlings may in fact be "specialists" just as much as Ivory-bills, even if we humans haven't yet perceived or categorized their particular specializations.

Following Tanner, writers came to blindly repeat the notion that Ivory-bills REQUIRED certain foods, certain size trees, certain amount of space for survival, but without evidence to support such definitive claims. No amount of repetition by itself validates such statements. Tanner showed only that a pitifully small sampling of Ivory-bills preferred certain foods... when available, preferred certain trees... when available, and utilized a certain number of square miles... when available. That Ivory-bills could NOT survive without bark beetle larvae, without large first-growth trees, and on less than 6 square miles simply has never been shown, and is actually quite a leap of logic (Ivory-bills, being 15-20% larger than Pileateds, could likely make do with trees 20% larger than those used by Pileateds, and such trees are plentiful.) To truly know the needs/requirements of a creature one must know its physiology and cognition --- behavioral cues/observations by themselves are not enough to base such firm conclusions, and yet that is principally what we have for the Ivory-bill (there are possible physiological reasons why the IBWO species might be unable to survive without beetle larvae, but these are rarely discussed).

Maybe time will show that Tanner, or his interpreters, got it right from the start, but I'm still waiting for the evidence, not mere regurgitation, that would validate that. And in the meantime, 1000's of acres of land that do meet Tanner's requirements await searching.
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-- The More The Merrier --

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Yet another Ivory-bill search blog has begun, this one by photographer Kyle Gerstner, soon to join the Auburn team in the Choctawhatchee. He says the blog is for "family and friends," but I s'pose we can all peek in from time to time:

http://kylegerstner.blogspot.com/

One of my acquaintances and his wife will be joining the Auburn team at about the same time as Kyle for a 3-month sojourn. A Merry Campephilus to all!


Addendum: Kyle appears to have now taken his site down.
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-- 'Believers' Forum --

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Awhile back some of the Ivory-bill 'believers' and searchers disenchanted with the IBWO atmosphere over at "BirdForum" migrated to their own (mediated) discussion site at:

http://www.ibwo.net

If you followed IBWO matters over at BirdForum then many of the names and thoughts here will be familiar --- if the BirdForum discussion intrigued you, or if you never followed that site, then their new venue is worth a gander (...if you were critical/skeptical of the old site, the new site won't likely alter your viewpoint). Thus far, there are about 70 members of the new forum (which was started, by the way, by Donald Kimball).

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-- Habitat Review --

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With the South Carolina and other official searches soon to get underway might be a good time (especially for newbies to the topic, or potential independent searchers) to review the conclusions of Bill Pulliam who earlier this year employed Terraserver to spot locales suitable for Ivory-bills throughout the southeast:

http://bbill.blogspot.com/2006/03/potential-ivory-billed-woodpecker.html
and,
http://bbill.blogspot.com/2006/03/summary.html

...and to review the thoughts of long-time IBWO searcher Bob Russell on good places to look:

http://www.birdingamerica.com/toptenibwpsites.htm

So much habitat in need of searching (maybe 8000-14000 sq. miles)... and yet many are already saying they'll give up on the species if this limited search season goes unsuccessful. Luckily, real field science doesn't operate on arbitrary timetables nor armchair analysis, but depends on those hands-on few willing and able to do the toilsome, on-the-ground work necessary, however long it takes.
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-- Texas Note --

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A note here about some details of the upcoming Texas Ivory-bill search:

http://gcbo.typepad.com/gulf_coast_bird_observato/2006/11/ivorybilled_woo.html

And elsewhere on the Net it's mentioned that the S.C. search begins anew this coming Mon. (...I didn't realize any of the major organized searches were initiating before Christmas!).
As mentioned before I'm not terribly optimistic about either the Texas or S.C. searches, but still good to see serious and enthusiastic searches taking place in these locales, which need to be covered once-and-for-all in an organized manner. Go for it and prove me wrong!
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-- Stuff --

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A few things makin' the rounds:

Zoologist/chemist Fred Virrazzi has written the following article for a local Audubon newsletter regarding the level of evidence for Ivory-bill existence:

http://www.monmouthaudubon.org/PDF_files/DecJan07c.pdf

Geoff Hill has an update on his Auburn IBWO website, focussing on one specifically-recorded loud knock that correlated with one of their team's original Ivory-bill sightings:

http://www.auburn.edu/academic/science_math/cosam/departments/biology/faculty/webpages/hill/ivorybill/Updates.html

David Luneau has posted some pictures of fall in the Big Woods here (...all the pictures, except the one everyone clamors for!):

http://www.ibwo.org/Pictures/Fall%2006%20album/index.htm

Don't know whether or not The Ghostbird movie, an independent documentary originally centered on the find in the Big Woods and the town of Brinkley, AR., is extending itself to some coverage of the Florida panhandle events or the coming winter searches... If not, it ought to be out by now or very soon (at independent film festivals). Final preparations will soon be being made for the searches to begin in earnest in January.

Soooooo.... are we having fun yet?!!!
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-- Parrots Down-Under --

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In a case of good timing, John Trapp who I just referenced a few days ago has a post today alerting readers to a rather fascinating story about an Australian parrot that has some parallels to our American IBWO controversy (it also has some parallels to some historical cases I shan't mention!):

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20816235-28737,00.html

John ends his post wondering if "the whole world is going stark, raving mad!" ...I guess I'm more inclined to wonder if we are possibly coming to our senses as to how flimsy and bare our assumed knowledge of flora/fauna is. . . .
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