-- 'Millions of Birders' --

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Probably the single most repeated argument I've heard over the last 40 years as to why Ivory-billed Woodpeckers must be extinct is simply that, 'with so many millions of birders active through America a bird this large couldn't have escaped detection.' To which I politely respond, 'BULLLL-DOOOOKEY!' I see estimates ranging from 24 million to 40+million birders presently in this country, but of course, MOST of those 'birders' will never in their entire lives set forth even momentarily in habitat that might harbor an Ivory-bill. Some will never go beyond their local park or greenway (I'm not critiqueing them for that -- I encourage ALL levels of birding, but just saying...). Only a tiny fraction of birders will spend any significant amount of time in IBWO-like habitat (although certainly more now, than in the decades previous to 2000), so it is hugely disingenuous to imply that huge numbers of knowledgeable people have spent countless hours roaming woodland tempting an encounter with the Lord God bird. Yes, lots of birders have spent some time looking for IBWOs in some places (what I call mostly 'spotchecks') over the decades, but the "millions" of hobbyists around these days is a meaningless figure.
In fact, one could presume that 200 years ago (even though there were far FEWER 'birders'), MORE people who knew what Ivory-bills were (even if they didn't know them by that name), routinely spent far more time in IBWO habitat than do so today even with millions more 'birders' present to do so.
And in a tangential vein one might want to read this recent post by 'Fangsheath' over on IBWO Researchers' Forum which has some relevance here:

http://www.ibwo.net/forum/showpost.php?p=1294&postcount=7

If you haven't been following matters at that Forum 'Fang' is back from an exploratory trip in Louisiana, and you may wish to backtrack for some of his informational posts since returning (mostly in the "Louisiana" thread).
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-- The Catch-22 of Searching --

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First, new article here on the Choc. search --- an interesting read, but once again largely re-hash, so on to the subject I'd rather currently address:

Bobby Harrison, Mike Collins, and a few others have argued that sudden influxes of noisy humans into the woods simply spook wary Ivory-bills making documentation less likely. Others (including myself) believe the likeliest way to document IBWOs is indeed with large-scale, systematic searches involving many individuals (in fact, I've long regarded the lack of solid documentation from the past as a result of failure to do such systematic searches). Both arguments have some merit. The IBWO is most likely a wary creature that will detect humans long before humans detect it, either ducking into a cavity or flushing well ahead of searchers (...like the bird in the Luneau video). However, the sheer size and difficulty of the land tracts needing exploration make successful 1 or 2-man outings unrealistic in many regards, basically requiring incredible 'luck' --- though from a root-for-the-underdog mentality I'd be thrilled to see one rugged individualist-type put the institutional teams to shame by being the first to attain unarguable photographic evidence of this quarry.

Still I expect the team approach to work best while acknowledging it creates the greatest disturbance for the birds (and in the end, a remote automatic camera may yet be the eventual winner). Search "teams" sometimes operate out of a base camp from which searchers fan out in spoke-like manner to appointed positions, again risking any IBWOs flushing well ahead of the human activity and out of an area. Once a 'hot zone' is determined teams should be posted to the north, south, east, and west of the area, to the degree terrain/topography allows. Then, as searchers advance forward, a suspected IBWO flushing in any direction may yet come into sight-contact with other searchers. The downside may well be greater disruption to the bird itself, and I fully respect those with a view that increased disruption ought not be risked.

On a different note, Bobby Harrison continues to utilize hand-crafted decoys in his searches for the IBWO, while Auburn is now emphasizing man-made 'double-knocks' trying to 'draw in' Ivory-bills to photographic range --- it's odd/disappointing how little such techniques have been employed in the past 60 years --- some have occasionally tried playing "kent" recordings which probably is NOT a good idea --- there are a paucity of kent recordings to choose from and we don't really know what those past recordings may even "mean" to another Ivory-bill; i.e. in 'Ivory-bill language,' for all anyone knows, those recordings may be saying, "THIS is MY territory, all the rest of you IBWOs stay OUTTA here" : - ] Again, too much we simply don't know...

Within a few days, time for another report from Cornell's 'mobile team' with their latest efforts in Mississippi. Their's is largely a scouting and information-gathering mission, and will probably have a lot to say about future searches once this season ends, whatever its results.
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-- Harrison Interview etc.--

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Lengthy online interview with Bobby Harrison from Birder's World magazine here. (May require free registration).
Plenty of grist for the mill here.

And Cornell has placed online the newly-discovered photos of the Cuban Ivory-bill (likely a distinct species or subspecies from the N. American IBWO) they had recently published in their Living Bird Magazine.
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-- Another Endangered Species --

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Interesting news on yet another endangered (and once-believed-extinct) avian species, the Sumatran Ground Cuckoo, here. Are these news reports almost becoming routine? In this instance they have recorded the bird's call for the first time ever (...assuming of course that it wasn't in actuality a Blue Jay ; - ) --- actually I suspect this 'shriek' upon human capture may not really be the bird's typical call.

...and for some more sheer avian entertainment/wonderment, while we tread water in IBWO-land, check out Mike McDowell's link in his post of today:

http://www.birddigiscoping.com/2007/02/riflebird-mating-dance.html
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-- IBWO Foundation Inaugural --

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Mary Scott's report on the inaugural of Bobby Harrison's Ivory-billed Woodpecker Foundation here.

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-- Texas Doings --

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John Arvin, head of the Texas IBWO search, posted this generally discouraging news on the Texas listserv today:

"Temple-Inland, the largest landowner of forested land in East Texas, has
announced a sell-off of their land holdings in the region. Why is this bad
news? Because continuous forests, both bottomland (especially) and upland pine
will be fragmented into thousands of little parcels as people obtain land for
their weekend homes. There are few conservation dollars available to pick up
some of the more important tracts. Birds and other organisms associated with
large tracts of intact forest will be especially affected. So, we can forget
about the (admittedly slight) chance that Ivory-billed Woodpecker might once
again inhabit extensive tracts of bottomland forest. Existing preserved tracts
are insufficient to support a viable population of that species and others like
it (e.g. Louisiana Black Bear). The almost extinct Longleaf Pine ecosystem of
the uplands is also in peril, along with its specialty species (Red-cockaded
Woodpecker, Bachman's Sparrow, Brown-headed Nuthatch). Habitat fragmentation is
almost as damaging as outright habitat loss for many species. Sorry to be the
bearer of bad tidings."

...speaking of Texas, another article from a few days back on the Big Thicket search here.

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-- Focus on Fitzpatrick --

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New article about Cornell's John Fitzpatrick here. Ivory-bill stuff starts about 1/4 of way into the piece.

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-- IBWO Foundation Kicks Off --

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Article on the IBWO Foundation gala (last evening) here.

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-- Like Father, Like Son --

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Recently, John V. Dennis Jr. participated in the Cornell Big Woods IBWO search -- here. John is the son of his more famous ornithologist father who made Ivory-bill headlines decades ago (but also contributed much else to ornithology). I believe John Jr. is also in the process of writing a book about his dad's birding endeavors. Jerry Jackson's son has helped his dad search for the elusive woodpecker on occasion, also. And in the late 80's Fred Sibley believed he may have heard an Ivory-bill call in Mississippi.... Yo, David, get with the program! ; - )

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-- Updates Continue --

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Both Auburn's Dr. Hill and Cornell's Mobile Search Team have posted new updates (use the links at left to get there). Some interesting things said, but nothing conclusive Ivorybill-wise. The mobile search team has finished up at Pearl River and is moving on to the Pascagoula River region of Mississippi --- good to hear, as Miss. remains the most under-explored IBWO-likely state, unless much more is going on there than has been publicized.
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-- More Arkansas Thoughts --

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Thanks to "Bootstrap Analysis" for calling attention to a Dec. article in the Journal of Wildlife Management, by wildlife biologist Albert Bivings regarding the persistence of Ivory-bills in Arkansas, here.

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-- Listers Beware! --

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I've long believed the concept of "species," especially as it relates to birds, is far more arbitrary than most acknowledge. The ramifications of this fascinating article go far beyond the Ivory-billed Woodpecker (which has now been DNA-barcoded), detailing how molecular/genetic studies are both expanding bird species count (finding "cryptic species" within birds that look physically the same) and also lumping together birds previously thought to be distinctly different species. Some day the constant (virtually silly) AOU bickering over such matters will be put to rest by the newer techniques (although the molecular approach itself will have its own ambiguities).

And on a different note, a local TV story about the IBWO search in the the Big Thicket area of Texas here.

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-- Interesting --

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Well now, this is interesting... more high technology at work in the search for the Ivory-billed Woodpecker: two high-tech robotic cameras have been installed in the Big Woods area of AR. specially programmed to scan the skies and snap pictures of overflying birds that might meet the characteristics of an Ivory-bill; hard disks are removed regularly (by D. Luneau) and results analyzed by birders. Sounds a bit far-fetched at first, but apparently has met the serious muster of those involved, as yet another jointly-based techie tool in the ongoing endeavor.
A couple of articles relating the story are here:

http://www.physorg.com/news90942222.html

http://news.mongabay.com/2007/0217-ibw.html


....a-a-a-and fierce, unbridled septicism (and unabated mirthmaking) continues to emanate from here.
(where, for those who have followed the internet IBWO debate from the get-go (and know the many Web players and arguments), the 'comments' sections are virtually funnier than the posts.)
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-- Another Article --

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Dr. Hill seems a tad late with an update out of the Choctawhatchee... no doubt, busy, processing some film or something : - ) ... No, no, seriously, while we bide time, decent overview article out of Oregon of all places here:

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/science/20070215-9999-lz1c15knockin.html

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-- IBWO Foundation --

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Haven't seen much new information on the Ivory-billed Woodpecker Foundation whose inaugural gala is little more than a week away in Huntsville, AL., but their mission statement is here on the BirdingAmerica website.

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-- Keep 'em Comin' --

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Well, the Ivory-bill blogs just keep on comin', and I must say this one looks pretty promising : - ):

http://ivorybilledseptic.blogspot.com/index.html

This Gnarls Pagan fellow sounds like someone I could sip some Beaujolais with.

hmmm... let's see, is Pete Dunne behind this (he never stops writing), or does someone on Team Nokuse have way too much time on their hands????
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-- Hill's Book Forthcoming --

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One of the latest auditory "kent" encounters at the Choctawhatchee is now up on Dr. Mennill's site for listening, here. Like a lot of the acoustic data, interesting, but not altogether meaningful by itself without full spectrographic analysis. The paucity of previous IBWO recordings for comparison makes any definitive conclusions unlikely; but another datapoint for followup.

For believers and agnostics, Geoffrey Hill's book on the Auburn Ivory-bill find/search is due out in a week or so. Look for it in your local bookstore or on Amazon here (see below). I s'pose many of the skeptics won't have any interest since they've already made up their minds, based on a pittance of science and a whole lot of armchair speculation, that the Ivory-billed Woodpecker is not only extinct, but has been since the 1940's (all for lack of a photograph). In the meanwhile, the first multiple and serious searches of some of the areas of interest have barely begun, and not all information is public, but that never keeps some cynics from speaking with certitude, as the rush, rush, rush to judgment continues.

"Ivorybill Hunters: Search for Proof in a Flooded Wilderness Forest" by Dr. Geoffrey Hill.
Table of Contents:

Chapter 1: Gone but not forgotten
Chapter 2: A most improbable discovery
Chapter 3: From possible to certain
Chapter 4 : My Quandary
Chapter 5: Is it a miracle?
Chapter 6: The Boynton Cutoff
Chapter 7: Hunting ivorybills in the backyard
Chapter 8: Let the search begin
Chapter 9: Good science, bad science, or no science at all?
Chapter 10: Tangible evidence
Chapter 11: The mule: hauling out the audio evidence
Chapter 12: Voices in the wilderness
Chapter 13: Cat out of the Bag
Chapter 14: Return of the Lord God Bird
Epilogue: How to be an ivorybill hunter

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-- Cornell Team at the Pearl --

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Mike Collins reports that Cornell's mobile search team is now in the Pearl River area, having concluded their sojourn at the Choctawhatchee. It sounds as though they may have entirely bypassed the Escambia River region of the western FL. Panhandle which would be a bit disappointing if so. (For that matter disappointing they did not explore any more southerly FL. areas, unless the plan is to do so on a return trip later.) I s'pose they may update their log tomorrow or Tues. with further thoughts on their last 10 days or so.
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