-- Praan --

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Heading into the weekend, a video set to Garry Schyman's "Praan" music:




---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-- Winding Down? --

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Four years of searches for the Ivory-billed Woodpecker, and likely we're left in the worst of all possible worlds. Limbo. Best-case scenario of course the species would've already been documented to everyone's satisfaction by now. But even a near complete lack of sightings and sounds over the four year period would at least have lent more satisfying closure to the debate, and greater unanimity in the species' extinction. Instead we are left with plenty of sightings and sounds, but scattered amongst different areas, and no way of ascertaining with confidence what they all represent. For lack of a photograph, we meander in a suspended state, occupied by individuals who "know" they have seen the bird, individuals who "know" it can't possibly exist, and those who simply don't know for sure what can be known.

I've never had great confidence (...although others do) that independent searchers could likely accomplish what organized academic/scientific teams, with the resources at their disposal, have failed to do. Yet it may be left to independents to do just that and document this bird (...and if they do, what would THAT say about the skills, wisdom, foresight, etc. of those in charge of this 4-year endeavor???) --- Or is documenting Ivorybills little more than a matter of sheer chance anyway, barely associated with strategy, planning, or knowledge...?

Assuming no last-minute game-changing findings awaiting announcement, for me many disappointments emerge from the last 4+ years, including:

9) failure of remote Reconyx cameras to capture an IBWO on film, even allowing for their unreliability.

8) scarcity of time and resources spent searching in Mississippi, relative to time and resources expended in South Carolina.

7) inability of the scientific community to decipher recorded "kent" sounds with any conclusive precision.

6) the Steve Sheridan hoax in particular, and the diversion of trollsters, hoaxers, pranksters, and the like, in general.

5) unresolvable nature of the Luneau video.

4) generally poor, infrequent, and undetailed public communications from Cornell's Lab of Ornithology and others in charge of the search (almost inexplicable, except by the 'chilling' effects that harsh criticisms may have had on those in charge).

3) overall scarcity of reported sightings from any single given area since the original Big Woods and Choctawhatchee claims, despite scattering of reports from many areas.

2) failure of the ACONE camera system to attain a photograph from the Bayou de View area. (in my view, possibly the greatest chance of documenting the species, and best technological creation of the 4-year effort, but to no avail).

1) ...and perhaps biggest disappointment of all: Laura Bush (of all people), originally being invited to the initial announcement of the Ivory-bill's rediscovery, and cyberthrush not. ;-] (go figure...)

These things can all be explained away, but of course all sightings of IBWOs for 60+ years can also be explained away.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-- Readers' Reports --

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nothing particularly new or significant in the sightings reports I've received from readers, but here goes.

Only 7 responses that I'll summarize:

3 sightings from Arkansas, 3 from Florida and 1 from Louisiana, all between 2005-08, and all ranked as "certain" or "somewhat certain" (I decided not to include a couple of reports rated as "1's" which didn't seem very compelling, and of course no auditory reports included). I believe 1-2 of these 7 claims have not been reported to official sources, but the remainder have all been reported to Cornell, though not always mentioned otherwise on the Web.

Some clarifications:

For the most part these 7 reports represent only responses to my specific inquiry... many individuals who read this blog from time-to-time and who have made past claims did not respond directly to the post, and so were not included (as I couldn't decide where to draw the line between who to include and who not to). So for example, Mike Collins' well-known claims are not part of the seven, nor most of the original Cornell or Auburn claimants, nor any of a couple dozen other folks with past reports that readily come to mind (indeed, though there are dozens of claims prior to 2005, none were sent in, and also surprising that only 3 states were represented). It is possible a few claimants may have felt constrained by confidentiality agreements from reporting anything to a blog. Thus, a great many known reports are missing here; on-the-other-hand I was happy to hear of a couple of claims I was not previously aware of.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-- Ambrose Bierce Redux --

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Today just a re-written version of a post I did some time ago....

As a public service for any newbies to the Ivory-billed Woodpecker debate, I've compiled a brief glossary of a few terms one ought be acquainted with:

"Groupthink" --- A blind thought process that 'Party A' accuses 'Party B' of engaging in, all the while that 'Party A' is wholly immersed in it.

"Luneau video" --- Modern-day ornithological Rorschach test (or 4 seconds of cryptic, enigmatic, pixelated mystery) that splits all birders into 2 diametric groups.

"kent... kent" --- the sound that Blue Jays repeatedly make... when they're imitating certain big woodpeckers of the deep forest.

"Cornell Lab of Ornithology" --- the renowned professional bastion of knowledge and expertise in North American ornithology... or... NOT.

"extinct" --- the state-of-being of any lifeform that refuses to subject itself to current photographic representation.

"field biology" --- the "science" in which limited observations of small, generally non-random samples are routinely extrapolated to draw loose/false inferences and generalizations about entire populations.

"field marks" --- Specific physical characteristics/markings used to differentiate Ivory-bills from all other birds... except for briefly-glanced, over-sized, bi-laterally leucistic Pileateds.

Bigfoot --- creature whose very non-existence proves the extinction of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker.

"the non-commutative law of mistaken identifications" (or, the one-way direction of mistaken identifications) --- out of dozens of brief "Ivory-bill" sightings ALL can be assumed to actually be Pileated Woodpeckers, but out of 1000's of brief sightings of Pileateds none could ever be an Ivory-bill.

"extraordinary" --- a description typifying any supposition that you don't personally believe in, but definitely not applying to any supposition you do believe in.

"certainty" --- in science, the product of linking conjecture with circular arguments, while ignoring underlying assumptions; otherwise, a term applying only to death and taxes.

Occam's Razor --- the philosophical notion that when faced with multiple explanations for a phenomena one may as well believe whichever explanation one most prefers, and figure out how to justify it afterward.
----------------------------------

Unless other news supercedes it, I'll post the readers' sightings report summary sometime Monday (it's proving more difficult than I anticipated to decide how best to summarize them.)

Haven't decided on your summer vacation yet??? Richard Lyttle posted this (South Carolina) offer over at IBWO Researchers Forum recently:

http://www.ibwo.net/forum/showpost.php?p=5089&postcount=2
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-- Misc. --

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The search season is winding down and given officials' past tendency of taking longer and longer to compose a summary document when there was less and less to report, I suspect we may not get a synopsis of the current season before around 2013 :-(
We may have a "Swine-flu Skeptic Blog" out of Minnesota to read before much official news on the 2008-9 search season appears...

To all those asking me about Rich Guthrie (no updates in 2 wks.) I don't have a clue, but no, I don't believe the silence has anything to do with IBWO encounters; more likely just limited time and internet access.
I'm expecting a long slow summer ahead.

Midnight Saturday is more-or-less the deadline for anyone wishing to report a past IBWO sighting to me for my current tally per the 4/26 post.

A series of pics are posted at Bobby Harrison's IBWO blog from their last endeavor in Arkansas' Big Woods deploying Ivory-bill decoys.

For now I've taken 'Gary Erdy's site' off the left-hand links; even if he re-launches his site, I suspect it may be with a different URL. And have moved Bill Pulliam's blog from the 'links' section down to the short blogroll section.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-- Comments ID, etc. --

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

For any who haven't already discovered it:

To make things slightly less convenient for the trollsters out there I've initiated the requirement for "Open ID" or Google ID for all commenters (sorry for any inconvenience to others, but several bloggers have told me for months this would be necessary, and I avoided it as long as I could). If you don't already have an appropriate ID, it's easy enough to get one via Google. Hopefully, this will help limit the number of loopy skeptics who visit here anonymously that are an embarrassment to the real skeptics.

BTW, Blogger keeps hinting they'd like the blog upgraded to their newer format, so at some point I'll probably have to do that, disrupting things a bit, but putting it off as long as possible (these things never go fully smoothly).

I'll wait about a week for email responses to the previous 'sightings' post (Sunday, April 26) to trickle in and report on them next weekend or Mon. (although I don't foresee anything very noteworthy arising therefrom). Thank you to those who have already responded.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-- Just Curious --

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Seen an Ivory-billed???????????

I'd like to get an idea of how many readers of this blog believe they themselves have SEEN a living Ivory-billed Woodpecker in the wild at some point.

The basic info I'd like is 1) how many sightings you've had, 2) what state(s), and 3) what year(s). I want to hear ONLY about actual SIGHTINGS, NOT auditory encounters. Also, rate the level of certainty that you observed an IBWO, along these lines (only need to rate your best sighting, if you've had multiple):

"3" -- VERY certain
"2" -- somewhat certain
"1" -- lean toward an IBWO, but can't rule out some other possibilities

You can describe any encounter(s) as much as you wish, but it isn't necessary; I'm really just looking for a numerical total of individuals and geographic distribution, although I might respond back to some reports if I want more clarification.
If the results are interesting enough I'll tally them for a post (no specific details or names given out, just numbers and states), but the sample size is likely to be too small to be of great interest.

Please email me at:

cyberthrush@gmail.com

Thanks. . . .
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-- Hmmm... --

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Google has a "trends" feature that allows you to check where, geographically, the most searches for a given word or phrase are emanating from. In checking "Ivory-billed Woodpecker" the following top 10 cities came up at this point in time:

1. Little Rock, AR, USA
2. Cincinnati, OH, USA
3. Denver, CO, USA
4. Minneapolis, MN, USA
5. Washington, DC, USA
6. Seattle, WA, USA
7. Atlanta, GA, USA
8. Philadelphia, PA, USA
9. Chicago, IL, USA
10. San Francisco, CA, USA

Not sure why Cincinnati would be #2 (Ohio has an active birdwatching contingent, but still seems a tad odd)???, and no cities from Florida, Louisiana, or South Carolina even crack the top 10.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-- Weekend --

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As long as we're doing scenic tours, may as well take a look at the Big Woods of Arkansas courtesy of Allan Mueller:



Otherwise, maybe overdue for some updates from somewhere (or NOT)....

Nothing new on B. Harrison's blog or the BirdForum IBWO thread in almost 4 wks.
Been a week since Rich Guthrie updated his Arkansas search entries.
Been 2 wks. since any update from Mike Collins.
No new posts on the IBWO Researchers Forum for 4 days.
No further word from Gary Erdy since he last said he was considering relaunching his website.
No update from the ACONE people regarding their camera system in Bayou de View in a long time (I know it's been down for a long while, but they still could update their site once-in-a-while).
Nothing official out of S. Carolina since Cornell arrived there.
No report (via BirdingAmerica) from Bob Russell's February trip to the Choctawhatchee (...nor has he sent along a new Top 10 list of locales to search).
Last update from Choctawhatchee 10 weeks ago.
And of course nothing publicly disclosed from other search states, as the season draws toward a close (though, no end to chatter).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-- Congaree In Springtime --

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A brief look at part of Congaree Swamp (S.C.) in the spring:




And Martin Collinson visited the Pearl River area of La. recently, but shy, humble Brit that he is, won't 'fess up to spotting any Ivory-billed Woodpeckers:

http://proregulus.blogspot.com/2009/04/mildly-rude-sounding-pearl-river-home.html
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-- New Open Thread --

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Probably a fine time to start a new open thread.
Debate, discuss, pontificate...
Wrangle, rebuff, skewer, crush, demolish, pillage, annihilate.... and remain civil.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-- Quote... Unquote --

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"As to assertions without adequate evidence, the literature of science is filled with them, especially the literature of popular science writing. Carl Sagan's list of the "best contemporary science-popularizers" includes E.O. Wilson, Lewis Thomas, and Richard Dawkins, each of whom has put unsubstantiated assertions or counterfactual claims at the very center of the stories they have retailed in the market. Wilson's Sociobiology and On Human Nature rest on the surface of a quaking marsh of unsupported claims about the genetic determination of everything from altruism to xenophobia. Dawkins's vulgarizations of Darwinism speak of nothing in evolution but an inexorable ascendancy of genes that are selectively superior, while the entire body of technical advance in experimental and theoretical evolutionary genetics of the last fifty years has moved in the direction of emphasizing non-selective forces in evolution. Thomas, in various essays, propagandized for the success of modern scientific medicine in eliminating death from disease, while the unchallenged statistical compilations on mortality show that in Europe and North America infectious diseases, including tuberculosis and diphtheria, had ceased to be major causes of mortality by the first decades of the twentieth century, and that at age seventy the expected further lifetime for a white male has gone up only two years since 1950.....

"Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated."

--- Richard Lewontin, 1997 (Harvard geneticist)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-- Words and Such --

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

During a recent exhaustive triple-tiered, double-blind-controlled, meta-linguistic, full Fourier-analysis of the major extant Ivory-bill literature, I tallied the following textual word-frequencies in use:

Most Common Words Used By True-believers:

1. Patience
2. Hope
3. Wary
4. Luneau video
5. Encounter
6. Rare
7. Scaling
8. Putative
9. Kents
10. Wingbeats

Most Common Words Used By Cynics:

1. Extinct
2. Proof
3. Not
4. Pileated
5. Bigfoot
6. Photograph
7. Faith-based
8. Inconclusive
9. Blurry
10. Occam's Razor

10 words or phrases thus far notably MISSING from the IBWO literature:

1. que sera sera
2. supercalifragilisticexpialidocious
3. indubitably
4. just kidding
5. %$*&%#*!! friggin' woodpecker (...well, verbally spoken, but not in the printed literature)
6. beam me up Scotty
7. outwit, outplay, outlast
8. liar, liar, pants on fire
9. 6-pack abs
10. new and improved

More words, no doubt, still to come. . . .
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-- Four Years Later --

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Oh life is like a maze of doors and they all open from the side you're on
Just keep pushin' hard boy, try as you may
You're gonna wind up where you started from
You're gonna wind up where you started from."

--- Cat Stevens ("Sitting," 1972)


This month marks the fourth anniversary since Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology stunned the birding community announcing that the Ivory-billed Woodpecker had been rediscovered in Arkansas. Yet many remain in doubt as to whether it was real or all an illusion from the get-go.

In the bizarro world of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker not only is a lack of sightings perceived as evidence of IBWO extinction... but even continuous sightings, and appropriate sounds, signs, and cavities, WHEN unaccompanied by indisputable photography, is now viewed as further evidence of extinction.

The only possible definite outcome from these last four years would've been clear confirmation of the species' existence. Lacking that we remain in limbo. There can never be proof that Ivory-bills went extinct in the 1940's as many weakly contend, or in the 60's, 70's, or 90's as some others may believe... or perhaps the "Elvis" bird seen in Arkansas was the very last of his kind. Or... as many STIIIIIIILL believe (and is certainly indicated)... a small scattering of the species may yet haunt corners of the American Southeast... caught thus far only in occasional quick glances, by a lucky few individuals in the uncanny right place at the uncanny right moment, for a species that evades the certainty of the focused camera lens.
The bird continues to be reported, and no actual evidence, beyond sheer conjecture, substantiates a notion that all of those sightings are unreal. Unfortunately, in IBWO circles, the line between conjecture and science barely exists anymore... if it ever did.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-- 'Accomplishments....' --

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

US Fish and Wildlife has released an "Accomplishments Report 2008" (pdf) for the IBWO search --- I assume this is the long overdue official summary report for the '07 - '08 search season, such as it is (or maybe this is just a summary, of that summary?). On a first reading, appears to be pretty much o-o-o-old news by now, with a few added details and numbers fleshed out (maybe I'll say more about it later after a second reading, though not necessarily).

Addendum: just a few further notes about the report... for the '07 - '08 season South Carolina is reported to have had the most "potential encounters" (20); western Tennessee is deemed worthy of further effort (which it got this season); not much found in the Big Thicket of east Texas and the search there is set to conclude this month; the only searching reported in Florida is Auburn's efforts in the Choctawhatchee area --- a bit odd since there are so many other regions of interest in central and southern Fla., at least some of which got some attention this season. And finally, no mention at all of Mississippi except for the Cornell mobile team's brief look there, even though that state too clearly has areas of interest.

Found it interesting as well that in reference to various ongoing research taking place, the report mentions that, "An important issue that the research will address is the potential limiting influence of predation on the productivity of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker population." ...Given the difficulty of just consistently finding and photographing the birds, seems pretty early to be much concerned with 'predation' issues just now; if the species has made it to today they've done so without much micro-management from us. Pretty clearly what they need is continued habitat conservation and limits to human encroachment on that habitat. Any human interventions beyond that could have unforeseen ramifications.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-- 'nuther Interlude --

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Scientist at play:




"Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts."
-- Richard Feynman, 1966
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-- News Article --

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Milwaukee Examiner news article HERE, including a couple of old YouTube videos at end.

Rich Guthrie's first update since traveling to Arkansas, on his blog here.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-- The Monty Hall Paradox --

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Straightforward explanation of the "Monty Hall" Problem via YouTube here:


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------