-- Steinberg Speaking --

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If you're in/near Tuscaloosa, Dr. Michael Steinberg, author of the forthcoming (next year) book "Stalking the Ghost Bird: The Elusive Ivory-Billed Woodpecker in Louisiana" is giving a talk to the West Alabama Sierra Club Thur. night (Oct. 18) at Univ. of Alabama's Museum of Natural History, 7 pm.:

http://uanews.ua.edu/anews2007/oct07/ghostbird101607.htm
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-- Extinction --

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I get emails....

...repeatedly, asking when, if ever, I'd consider the Ivory-bill extinct, so we'll cover this again:

First, it must be said that contrary to what sometimes is stated on the Web, Ivory-billed Woodpeckers were never and have never been declared extinct by any official Governmental agency. Only individuals and a few impatient non-governmental groups over the years took the liberty of labeling the species "extinct."

Now, the Moa and Dodo, yeah probably extinct --- I'd certainly be hugely surprised if any evidence to the contrary arose. On-the-other-hand, Passenger Pigeon and Carolina Parakeet, while certainly most likely also extinct, I would not be completely surprised if evidence to the contrary arose in either case, even if unexpected.

Declaring a species extinct is a serious matter, never to be done lightly, and can logically be based only on one of two things:

1. A truly lengthy lapse of time with no credible sightings for the species. And for a species with an extensive prior range like the Ivory-bill's, 60 years is not a long enough time even with no sightings, and certainly not enough time when a continuous string of reports is involved (as further borne out by the number of species re-discovered after a 50-60 year absence, or even after 100 years).

or,

2. A thorough, systematic search of the remaining habitat that might harbor a species reveals no indication for its presence --- this can sometimes be accomplished for species with very small ranges (such as a single island), but again, in the case of the Ivory-bill it hasn't, and realistically can't, be accomplished.

What is necessary then in the case of the Ivory-bill is as thorough a search as practical of remaining habitat (which is finally underway) combined with a lengthy passage of time with no credible sightings. This may eventually come to pass, but it hasn't been achieved in the previous 60 years. Those who think it has, vastly overrate the precision of human foot-searches.

Instead, skeptics repeatedly equate a 'failure to confirm' a claim, to evidence that the claim is false, when it is nothing of the sort. Indeed, a lot of good science would be tossed aside if failures to confirm were all it took to falsify.
Moreover, skeptics assume that if 90% of IBWO claims are quickly demonstrated as mis-IDs, wishful thinking, illusions, mutated Pileateds, and the like, than ALL such claims must be assumed as such. But one cannot simply dismiss a sighting as 'mistaken' without specifying inaccuracies or falsehoods in the claim; nor does the invention of alternative explanations allow for the automatic dismissal of a stated claim. Generalizing from a set of specific cases (mistaken IDs) to ALL cases, instead of evaluating each one independently, is simply sloppy science, especially when involving different people in different places at different times. The fallacy of over-generalization is risky in all of science, but especially so here, where confirmation of but a single recent Ivory-bill report validates the species' existence for the entire 60 years prior, regardless of how many other claims prove false.

Over the last 40 years, and well before any news from the Big Woods and Choctawhatchee, my personal confidence in Ivory-bill existence ranged anywhere from about 85% to 98% probability --- and nothing that has happened in the last 3 years much changes that overall range for me.
But yes, if time passes with increased and wider searches, and still no photo, and fewer and fewer credible reports arising, then that percentage might easily fall well below the critical 50%. But, it isn't likely to reach the certainty level that so many skeptics already preach.

Certainty in life is rare and boring. Probabilities are the very stuff of life --- what make it interesting and worthwhile. And in the realm of the Ivory-bill, we can disagree over what those probabilities are, but in the end, probabilities and not certainty, are what we have to work with. For now, I continue to put my trust in the actual on-site reports of certain individuals who's knowledge and experience is such that they ought to know what they witnessed with their own eyes, and not in the conjectures, speculation, and denigrations cast out by others, often from afar.

....in the meantime, on the off-chance you think you spot a Dodo crossing your backyard... well, DON'T notify me.
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-- Still... No... Evidence --

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Stiiiiill.... no solid evidence to support the notion that the Ivory-billed Woodpecker is extinct:

1. No thorough, coordinated searches of Southeast habitat for presence of the bird yet completed (just recently gotten underway). Those few areas lately focussed on resulting, almost invariably, in at least some sightings claims and/or evidence for possible presence.

2. No proof or even strong evidence that the 100's of claims over decades, are, in every single instance, examples of lying or mis-identification, often from individuals who's birding reports otherwise have been routinely accepted.

3. Not a single photograph of a leucistic Pileated Woodpecker with copycat markings of an Ivory-bill to account for all those IBWO claims over the years.

4. Never a single replication, authentication, validation, or even peer-reviewed critique (as customary in science) of the only solid study done on Ivorybills by Tanner. Whether Tanner did what he claimed he did, or accurately recorded his data, or drew valid conclusions, can in many instances never be known, anymore than the claims of more recent Ivory-bill sighters can ever be known with certainty; and even if Tanner's Singer Tract data/observations were 100% accurate, there remains no way of knowing what such a small sample even tells us about other Ivory-bills in other locales outside the Singer Tract...

In short, while there is plenty of evidence for the rarity of this species, there is little evidence for the absolutist stance of 'extinction,' just ongoing loads of conjecture, speculation, over-generalization, and circular talk.

Ultimately we are left with essentially two probabilities:

a. that all the claims/sightings, by different individuals in different places at different times under different circumstances and from different angles, are in every instance, errors, or

b. that an already-scarce bird living out its life in the upper canopies and cavities of deep forest has eluded definitive photography for a 60+ year period (over which time most people didn't even routinely carry cameras into the woods).

And each person must decide for themselves which probability they find greater, unless-or-until ongoing science answers the question for us...
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-- 10-12-07 --

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CONGRATULATIONS! to Al Gore

While Cheney and Bush fiddle on....
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-- Swamp Watching --

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David Luneau has a possible request that will likely interest some here (seeking volunteers to help review swamp videos remotely this coming season):

http://www.ibwo.org/

(check his first entry, "Upcoming search season.")
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-- More Festivals --

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This coming Saturday evening (Oct. 13) Cornell's Dr. Fitzpatrick will give the keynote address for the Georgia Colonial Coast Birding and Nature Festival (on Jekyll Island), "How Ivory-billed Woodpeckers (and other birds) Can Save the World" :
http://www.coastalgeorgiabirding.org/sat_dinner.htm

and... as long as you're at their site, if you're familiar with Steve Holzman you just might want to also read his bio given here, for a few tidbits you may not have known about him ;-) :

http://www.coastalgeorgiabirding.org/bios.htm

The following week, Auburn's Dr. Hill will be giving a keynote address on guess-what-topic at the Alabama Coastal BirdFest, the evening of Friday, October 19.

....a reminder also that tonight is the evening of the Bobby Harrison/Jerry Jackson Ivory-bill presentations at Ding Darling Days (Sanibel Island, FL.).

..................................................................

...and from the Web Grab Bag:

I've never cared much for the "Dancing With the Stars" show that seems to be such a TV hit, but I wouldn't mind dancing the night away with this fellow:

http://birdloversonly.blogspot.com/2007/09/may-i-have-this-dance.html
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-- Cornell Update --

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Cornell has updated their FAQ page on the Arkansas IBWO search, giving a hint of what will be reported in their final summary for the 2006-7 search season when released:

http://www.birds.cornell.edu/ivory/q_and_a/

They mention that 13 possible acoustic encounters were recorded for the prior search season and 11 purely visual encounters, most of course brief, and of course none definitive. A majority of encounters occurred in/near the Wattensau WMA area. And even after 3 years of searching less than 17% of the pertinent Big Woods region has been covered. A 'mobile search team' will again be deployed in 2007-8 in various areas of the Southeast.
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-- Another Book --

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IBWO Researchers' Forum alerts people to yet another book being published next year on the Ivory-bill: "Stalking the Ghost Bird" by LSU adjunct professor Michael K. Steinberg, focussed on the search for Ivorybills in Louisiana:

http://www.ibwo.net/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=967&d=1191891561

publication date listed at the ABA (Amer. Birding Assoc.) sales site is May 2008 --- lot could happen 'twixt now and then.... or, can be ordered directly from LSU Press site here:

http://www.ibwo.net/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=966&d=1191891367
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-- Oy Vey --

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Monday night's (Oct. 8) NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams is scheduled to run a short unfavorable piece on the dollars expended by the Federal Government in search of the Ivory-billed in Arkansas. Oy veyyy... People continue to bandy about the $27 million figure from the Draft Recovery Plan (...uhhh, that would cover how many minutes in Baghdad?). This figure is actually for the 5-year period running from 2006 to 2010, and theoretically, according to the proposed schedule, half or more of it will already have been spent by the end of this year.
Maybe also worth noting that US F&W has proposed spending $150 million over four decades on the recovery of the Western Snowy Plover.

Meanwhile, over at Ivory-billed Researchers' Forum, "Sidewinder" has posed the question of 'how many active Pileated nests are being found' by participants during their searches for the Ivory-billed Woodpecker. Tanner originally roughly estimated there could be 36 Pileated pairs in a given area inhabited by a single Ivory-billed pair... just to put some perspective on things.

.................................................................
Addendum --- from the Web Grab Bag:

This interesting post from "DC Birding Blog" on detailed old field notes (from 1920's) recently discovered describing the Javan Lapwing of Indonesia, not documented to exist since 1940. Pertinent quotes as follows:

"These records come from areas with no previous reports of Javan Lapwings and suggest that these birds may have wider habitat preferences than was previously thought."

and,

"If it still exists the population of Javan Lapwings must be tiny and work needs to be carried out immediately to survey all potential areas."

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-- What's In a Name --

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One of the side-delights of reading about Ivory-bill claims and searches is the geographic names that are associated with some of the locales involved, and otherwise not necessarily well-known --- names that almost musically roll off the tongue.
So, without further adieu, here is my own list of FAVORITE Top 10 place names associated at times with Ivory-billed Woodpecker speculations:

10. Okefenokee (GA.)
9. Bayou de View (AR.)
8. Chickasaw (TN.)
7. Fakahatchee (FL.)
6. Atchafalaya (LA.)
5. Apalachicola (FL.)
4. Coosawhatchee (SC.)
3. Yazoo (MS.)
2. Buttahatchie (AL.)
1. Pascagoula (MS.)

....may one or more of these become household names in birding circles in the next year :-)
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-- Update From Dr. Hill --

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Auburn's Dr. Hill has a new post here mentioning that the summary report on their findings to date is being completed, and going on to briefly discuss/clarify the somewhat controversial 1966 Ivory-bill sighting by Sanders and Brown in the Florida panhandle. Suspect the Auburn report will be out well before the Cornell summary of their 2006-7 search season.

With tight funds and so many other areas in need of more systematized searching, ground efforts at both Big Woods and Choctawhatchee will likely be scaled back and streamlined (but still important) this coming winter in favor of more serious study of some of those other locales that were of interest long before anyone had ever heard of 'Big Woods' or the 'Choc.' [addendum: this was my own side-comment, not part of the Hill update.]
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-- Stuff --

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Some Ivory-bill speculation from a new poster to IBWO Researchers' Forum here:

http://www.ibwo.net/forum/showpost.php?p=2980&postcount=164

Bobby Harrison and Dr. Jerome Jackson will be presenting together on the Ivory-billed Woodpecker next Wednesday as part of weeklong celebrations for "Ding Darling Days" at Ding Darling NWR (Florida).

....................................................

from the Web Grab Bag several things:

if you haven't already seen it, this Scottish seagull scofflaw shoplifts Dorito's chips from a convenience store:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8OG5nWyQvo&mode

just stumbled upon this website, which may interest a few, on the wild monk parrots of Brooklyn:

http://www.brooklynparrots.com/

...and if you've never seen a pink dolphin, well you can now:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,287938,00.html

with more pics here:

http://www.calcasieucharters.com/index.cfm?act=imagegallery.cfm?name=Rare+Pink+Dolphin+Photo+Gallery

Finally, possibly of interest to some out there:

http://gristmill.grist.org/skeptics
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-- Indeed --

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...from the Web Grab Bag, check here to see if the movie "No End In Sight" is playing in your area:

http://noendinsightmovie.com/
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-- Sam Keen on the Ivorybill --

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American best-selling writer and philosopher Sam Keen has a short new book out called "Sightings," on his experiences as a birder... from a philosophical slant. The next to last chapter tells an anecdote from his childhood of a possible, though unlikely, encounter with a shot Ivory-billed Woodpecker in Pikeville, Tennessee, in 1942. An interesting, entertaining (or, if truly an Ivorybill, quite sad!) read. Ironically, the essay was originally written in March of 2005... one month before Cornell's original jolting announcement.
..................................................................

....and from the Web Grab Bag, this homage to the Passenger Pigeon from "10000 Birds" blog:

http://10000birds.com/in-memory-of-martha.htm

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-- A Few Spots Here and There --

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From the analysis compiled for the official IBWO Draft Recovery Plan, here are some of the areas mentioned, state-by-state, as potentially worth a further look-see for presence of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker:

Alabama: stretches of the Tombignee, Alabama, Sipsey, and Buttahatchie River systems

Arkansas:

White River NWR
Cache River NWR
Wattensaw WMA
Bayou Meto WMA
Dagmar WMA
Benson Creek Natural Area
Rex/Hancock/Black Swamp WMA
Steve Wilson/Raft Creek Bottoms WMA
Henry Gray/Hurricane Lake WMA
Bald Knob NWR

Florida:

Apalachicola and Chipola River swamps
regions of the Aucilla, Wacissa, Wekiva, and lower Suwannee River watersheds
Fort Drum Swamp
Fakahatchee Strand
Big Cypress National Reserve

(Choctawhatchee and Escambia river systems should also be included here but are not part of the analysis.)

Georgia:

Ogeechee-Savannah River basin
Altamaha River Basin
Okefonokee Swamp
Red Hills Region

Louisiana:

Atchafalaya River Basin
Pearl River Basin
Tensas River NWR and Big Lake WMA

Mississippi:

Pascagoula, Mississippi, and Pearl River floodplain areas
Delta National Forest
Panther Swamp NWR

North Carolina: Waccamaw and Lumber River drainage areas, and Cape Fear River system

South Carolina:

Congaree-Wateree-Upper Santee River region
Savannah River and lower Santee River
Waccamaw drainage complex

Tennessee:

stretches of Hatchie River
Chickasaw NWR
Meeman Shelby State Park
Reelfoot Lake

Texas: lower stretches of Neches, Sabine, and Trinity Rivers

(Illinois, Missouri, and Oklahoma were not considered in the analysis).

....oughta keep some folks busy for awhile longer.
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-- A Little Bit of Knowledge --

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Einstein knew a lot about physics... but there was far more he didn't know. Some folks reading this blog know a lot about Ivory-billed Woodpeckers... but there's a lot more they don't know.
Whether one's name is "Einstein" or "John Doe" we are, all of us, ignorant about most things, i.e. on any given subject, what we don't know far exceeds what we do. Einstein, and all true scientists, understand this implicitly (but science-amateurs do not!). So the naivete displayed by skeptics at times concerning Ivory-bills, and bird behavior/cognition in general, is of little note (we all share in it) --- what IS noteworthy however, is the ignorance they often display... of their own ignorance --- their willingness, based on scant information, to state with certainty, things impossible to know with certainty.

It's oft' said that 'a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing,' and it's certainly true with the thimblefull of knowledge we possess regarding Ivory-bills. Given the number and variety of credible sightings over time in various locales by various people, the greatest probability is that some of these birds yet exist, and no amount of skeptical circular arguing, conjecturing, selective use of data, or singular focus on photographic evidence, will change that in the short term.

For believers of Ivory-bill persistence the worst that can happen is that the species is never definitively documented, and we are left forever wondering, as an unanswerable question, when truly did the last individuals die. For certain of the skeptics however, the worst calamity would now be for the species to be conclusively found (heaven forbid!!)... leaving their credibility in a shambles, and that previously-disguised ignorance exposed for all to view. And should that point arrive, keep in mind, that they painted themselves into a corner of their own free accord; no one pushed them.
................................................................................

...hey, but seriously, I don't often promote commercial products here, but to my surprise in the last year have fallen in love with these : (light, mind-boggingly comfortable, sturdy, easy-to-clean, vegan-friendly, simple, many styles)

http://shop.crocs.com/c-4-footwear.aspx?reqid=4&reqProdTypeId=4&subsectionname=footwear&section=products

or, if you're in college, may want to check out these versions.

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-- ...and From the Pearl --

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Persistent, indefatigable IBWO searcher Mike Collins, in a post to BirdChat offers to accompany other birders out to his previous "hot zone" for the birds along the Pearl River (La.), when he returns there next month for work. He can take people through his workplace, Stennis Space Center, offering easier access than would otherwise be the case.

He identifies the approximate location of this 'hot zone' with this map linked to from his website:

http://www.topozone.com/map.asp?lat=30.35686&lon=-89.65704&size=l&u=5&datum=nad83&layer=DRG

..........................................................................

From the Web Grab Bag:

American Airlines take note: A record-breaking Bar-tailed Godwit was recently tracked as flying over 7100 mi. non-stop from Alaska to New Zealand... without losing any luggage.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/09/070913-longest-flight.html

The spreading menace of red fire ants are having highly deleterious effects on songbird nesting success according to this report:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/09/070912143334.htm
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-- Reminder --

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Taking a cue from Dalcio Dacol over at IBWO Researchers Forum....

The US Fish and Wildlife Service is asking for public comment on its Ivory-billed Woodpecker Draft Recovery Plan until Oct. 22. The Plan (~170 pgs.) is available by download at:

http://www.fws.gov/ivorybill/

or you can simply request a hard copy from US F&W at this address:

US F&W
646 Cajundome Blvd. Suite 400
Lafayette, La. 70506

I'd urge all favoring the effort to be heard by contacting US F&W with positive comments, or even just a line or two of encouragement. You can put that in writing for snail mail, or simply email to: ibwplan@fws.gov

Support from the public can definitely help.

And if your thoughts be not so positively-inclined... well, then... nnnnnnevermind! ;-)

....................................................................

...from the Web Grab Bag, yet another piece from the NY Times on Alex, the African Grey Parrot:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/12/opinion/12wed4.html?pagewanted=print
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