-- Upcoming --

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We're about due for another report from Cornell's mobile search team to see what they have to say about Louisiana's Atchafalaya Basin, generally considered one of the best habitats for Ivorybills, and most difficult for searchers, in some parts.

And Thur. the "DC Environmental Film Festival" opens for a 10-day run (Wash. DC.). One of the many highlights will be George Butler's work-in-progress "The Lord God Bird" (if any DC readers see it and want to send in their impressions feel free). A possibly similar offering is "Rare Bird" about the "Cahow" or Bermuda Petrel, thought extinct for centuries before its documentation. Honestly, the Festival appears filled-to-the-brim (115 films) with excellent offerings. Dr. E.O. Wilson, Dr. Craig Venter, and one of my personal heroes, Dr. David Suzuki, will be in attendance among an outstanding crowd of folks. DC-ers are one lucky bunch --- can't imagine how people will even pick out what NOT to see!

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-- A Few Thoughts --

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Too much in Dr. Hill's new book for a blog review but I'll mention a few thoughts from a first quick scan of the volume:

1) more information than I've seen elsewhere on Tyler Hicks (for those who need a fuller picture), as well as other figures in the Choctawhatchee story.

2) Like Gallagher's book, a number of interesting yarns related here, I'd not heard elsewhere. The Ted Kretschmann story in chapter 7 is a particular one (I won't spoil it for you), and there are a number of other stories to tell and academic politics or behind-the-scenes activities to relate.

3) Different folks will enjoy different chapters, but I particularly like chapter 5, "Is It a Miracle," where Geoff tackles some of Tanner's generalizations and what I've long regarded as the absurd myth that this species lacked the habitat to survive for this long or couldn't have persisted without being seen. Among other things Geoff notes that Tanner's "one-man inventory of all Ivory-billed Woodpeckers and ivorybill habitat in the United States was perhaps the greatest folly in the history of Ivory-billed Woodpecker conservation and one of the greatest follies in the history of U.S. bird conservation" (while still recognizing the great, but imperfect, job Tanner did). And Hill further concludes that the Choctaw. finding was not so much "miraculous" or "astounding" as it was "inevitable."
Chapter 9, "Good Science, Bad Science, or No Science At All," I think will also be of particular interest to many, dealing with scientific argument, methodology, and evidence, and chapter 10 summarizes the "tangible evidence" compiled from the Choctaw.

4) In chapter 14 there is the first discussion I've seen of the video which was attained of purported ivory-bills in the area but never published due to its quality. And there's a lot more food for thought and debate, depending what your particular interests are, in various other chapters than I can indicate here.
On a complete side note, it's a very handsomely, stylishly (I think) done book, especially coming from an academic publisher.

Near the conclusion Dr. Hill voices a very optimistic note (written before the Choctawhatchee find was publicly announced, let alone the current search season begun) --- I don't know if he still feels comfortable with these words or not, but for 'believers' they are certainly uplifting:

"What I am sure of is that the ivorybills are there. Not one bird. Not a single pair. At least a half dozen pairs and perhaps tens of pairs of Ivory-billed Woodpeckers in the extensive swamp forests along the Choctawhatchee River. The Ivory-billed Woodpecker is not extinct. It isn't even hanging by a thread. It has a toehold in the forests on the Florida Panhandle."

...May it be so.
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-- It's H-E-E-E-R-E! --

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Just saw Dr. Hill's Ivory-bill book (Ivorybill Hunters: The Search for Proof in a Flooded Wilderness) in stock at a local Borders Bookstore.

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-- New BIRDING Articles & addendum --

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Over at BirdForum Rick Wright has alerted people to a new Birding Magazine (from ABA) edition with several Ivory-bill related articles available on the Web:

http://americanbirding.org/pubs/birding/archives/index.html

I don't see anything particularly new here, other than Floyd Hayes' summation of his study of people's perceptions within this whole debate --- even here, in a quick once-over, I don't see much that wasn't fairly predictable, although it may still make for much water-cooler banter in some Ivory-bill quarters. Nonetheless, interesting (and good) to see the major birding forums (ABA) still spending so much time on this story, and on a closer read maybe I'll find something more significant to comment on therein.

Addendum: I've looked over the Hayes' piece a bit more closely now. I'm very skeptical of survey research in general, and even moreso when it's done over the Web, but having said that, it's a fun read with various nuggets to chew on --- of course it adds nothing substantive to the evidence for-or-against Ivory-bill persistence, so probably won't dwell on it further here, but will refer folks to the comments of Bill Pulliam over at his blog, since they mirror in part some of my own thoughts.
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-- Search Methods --

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A new thread of interest (just 3 posts at this moment) was started today on IBWO Researchers Forum dealing with methods employed to search for Ivory-bills:

http://www.ibwo.net/forum/showthread.php?p=1338#post1338

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-- Nothing Extraordinary Here --

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Alert readers have sent in this link (and others) to another extinct bird find-of-the-week, a Thailand reed-warbler missing for a mere 130+ years, as it went about living out it's normal life.
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-- Pascagoula, plus... --

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Cornell's mobile search team has posted their experience in the Pascagoula River Basin of Mississippi here, and is now off to survey the Atchafalaya in Louisiana --- one might expect this to be one of their most interesting explorations. Obviously, stay tuned...

Addendum: ...and now Dr. Hill has posted his latest update on the Choc. search here.
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-- '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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