==> THEblog devoted, since 2005, to news & commentary on the most iconic bird in American ornithology, the Ivory-billed Woodpecker (IBWO)... and sometimes other schtuff [contact: cyberthrush@gmail.com]
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Mostly covering his new volume for National Geographic on bird coloration (his academic specialty, and interesting stuff in its own right), but at the end they do review the Ivory-bill scene, including this:
"...the whole thing is going to change overnight as soon as we get a clear picture of these birds... The thing is, if we’re wrong about this, it’s already being forgotten, it’ll fade away and be a footnote in history, but if we get a picture of one of these birds — definitive, you know, there’s no doubt — everybody’s going to have to rethink all of this certain skepticism. Everyone who thought for sure it was extinct is going to wonder, How crazy is it that this bird could avoid detection all these decades? It’s going to be a really interesting thing. It’ll be humbling in a way because we’ll see that we don’t quite have dominion over nature like we thought. "
Hardly necessary, but another press notice that, barring future leads providing more impetus, Cornell's search for the Ivory-billed Woodpecker is officially suspended without definitive evidence for the species:
Cornell's Rohrbaugh of course defends the effort made and conclusions reached, (and I do too --- I just find almost indefensible their communication to the public of that effort), and continues to say a text will be published next year summarizing all the data... I'll believe that when I see it. -------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------- For Yours Entertainment:
Nestcams seem to be all the rage these days (and they've improved tremendously in the last few years). Here are some additional real-time Ustream cams, similar to the 3 I've linked to over in left-hand column, under "Other" (caution: they eat up a lot of bandwidth, and can be quite addictive, so visit at your own peril!):
Following the 5-year effort, Cornell has concluded that "it is unlikely that ivory-bills still exist in the areas that were extensively searched," which suits me fine, but I wish they would elaborate on what areas they consider "extensively searched." No doubt parts of the Big Woods and Choctawhatchee are involved and I suspect sections of the Congaree as well, but exactly which parts, and which if any parts might need further study? And what about the Big Thicket, the Atchafalaya, Pascagoula... are any of these to be regarded as "extensively searched" by now? Are any of the locales visited by their 'Mobile Team' deemed "extensively searched"? Again, the Big Woods and Choctaw. were never really part of the dozen or more major sites with Ivory-bill rumors from the 50's through the 90's (yet that is where the main manpower and energy was expended in the last several years). What sites should still be under consideration, including those only newly-given attention in more recent times? Or have Cornell officials thrown in the towel on the IBWO, just without saying it out loud or in public.... --------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you're in the Knoxville, TN. area you may wish to attend a talk this coming Thurs. (4/15) at the Ijams Nature Center by artist/writer/naturalist Stephen Lyn Bales, about his upcoming book on James Tanner's Ivory-bill work:
One question that arrives in my email off-and-on is why am I not more optimistic about chances for Ivory-bills in the Congaree, or South Carolina more generally (many consider it the best Ivory-bill habitat remaining anywhere)? Here's the problem: even taking ALL the suitable S.C. habitat together, it is a circumscribed, contained area (large, but self-contained). If IBWOs have been living/breeding there for the last 60+ years than either the young have been dispersing out (and there's essentially nowhere to go except possibly the coast of North Carolina (where there is a real paucity of sightings), or they would have to stay in that contained area, greatly increasing the density of IBWOs there over 60 years, such that one might now expect far more encounters. In short, if the species has not been successfully breeding there, then that population would be extinguished by now, and if they have been successfully breeding for 6 decades there ought be more sightings, as well as foraging signs of them, by now (that's my view). I find it difficult to have it both ways --- that they've been hiding out there in numbers adequate to stretch across 60 years and yet organized searches fail to better document them (granted there's always the possibility that they are breeding there, but only very poorly so).
The best way in my view to account for 60+ years of breeding, yet sparse sightings, is if the birds reside in pockets along lengthy corridors of habitat that they may traverse up or down at will, and especially including patches not searched that well in 60 years. And the two best such corridors are north-south along the Mississippi River and east-west along the Gulf Coast, in both instances stretching across multiple states. Even this would be a delicate dance for IBWOs to pull off, but it is made possible by the expanse and remoteness of suitable habitat, and the likely behavioral nature of a cavity-dwelling remnant species. Where along those extended corridors the highest-probability search sites reside is still the unanswered question, but again one may need to focus on tracts least combed-over in recent times, rather than areas that have had 60 years worth of attention. -------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nice 6-minute newscast on the Ivory-bill from a Memphis PBS station, including an individual named Fred Carney, who I don't recall hearing of previously (saw 3 IBWOs in the Singer Tract back in the days...):
I've written previously here about the "GISS" or "jizz" of bird identification, also sometimes known as the gestalt or "Cape May" school of birding. The term was especially popularized by Pete Dunne, with his volume, "Pete Dunne's Essential Field Guide Companion," wherein he attempted through verbal description alone (no bird pictures of any sort), to convey a sense of the GISS of each North American bird (GISS really comes more from experience, than verbal description, but Dunne does a very admirable job). For experienced birders, the vast majority of bird identification has always been done by GISS, long before Dunne's emphasis on it (..."GISS" originally stood for "general impression of size and shape," but, in birding, actually includes many other factors).
I won't again go into its significance in the Ivory-bill situation, but a couple of further general Web references here:
The second article above quotes David Sibley thusly on the subject (from Malcolm Gladwell's book, "Blink"):
"Most of bird identification is based on a sort of subjective impression — the way a bird moves and little instantaneous appearances at different angles and sequences of different appearances, and as it turns its head and as it flies and as it turns around, you see sequences of different shapes and angles…
"All that combines to create a unique impression of a bird that can’t really be taken apart and described in words. When it comes down to being in the field and looking at a bird, you don’t take the time to analyze it and say it shows this, this, and this; therefore it must be this species. It’s more natural and instinctive. After a lot of practice, you look at the bird, and it triggers little switches in your brain. It looks right. You know what it is at a glance."
April is typically the last major month of the IBWO search season. And I don't see much on the horizon yielding more hope for this season than previous ones. Indeed, in the last 5 years the only specific evidence I've seen (including things not made public) I place much weight in still comes from the original Big Woods and Choctawhatchee claims... and of course, skeptics wouldn't ascribe much weight to those. There's plenty of other tentative evidence out there (as there has been for 60+ years), just nothing very persuasive to me pointing to a really specific locale.
The greatest chance of documenting Ivory-bills (at the level people are demanding), continues to be by finding a nesthole, which can only happen if some breeding pairs (and not just dispersing juveniles and single birds) remain. Where could such pairs be breeding? I'm not convinced Cornell or USFWS will ever compile and issue a summary report really focused on the question. My own view (trying to hone things down) is that the Auburn group did a good enough job in the Choctawhatchee and Mike Collins has done a good enough job in the Pearl that there would be either better documentation or increased sightings by now if breeding birds resided in those particular locales (just my opinion). Similarly, Texas' Big Thicket and South Carolina habitat have been well-enough covered over a period of 6 decades that I believe the probability remaining for those areas is low as well, though the habitat is vast. (Mind you, lone or dispersing birds might show up briefly in any of these areas.) Given the size of Arkansas' Big Woods and the limitations of the 5-year search there I still hold out some slim hope for it, and even moreso for less-traveled parts of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Florida with interconnecting suitable habitat and fewer man-hours spent. Western Tennessee continues to intrigue as well (if only due to few man-hours spent), even if seeming a real longshot. Plenty of also-ran-areas still out there in other states too, but pickins are gettin' sllim for those with higher probability. It is ashame that after 5 years the search for Ivory-bills seems as disparate and diffuse as ever, instead of focused into a couple of hotzones, but then the species' original distribution, even while limited and sparse, was always widely scattered.
As Yogi would say, 'it's not over 'til it's over,' but I'm not expecting this search season to end with much solid news to grasp. In which case it could be a long, hot, slow summer ahead. Having said that, it's always possible for a single photo/video to change everything on a moment's notice.I just wish, after the last 5 years, we had stronger clues where it might come from. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
If there is one individual on whose lap the 5-year search for the Ivory-bill rests it is likely not Mary Scott, or Gene Sparling, or John Fitzpatrick, or Van Remsen, but Tim Gallagher. Gallagher is the writer/adventurer and Cornell editor of "Living Bird" magazine who followed up (with buddy Bobby Harrison) on Gene Sparling's initial encounter in the Big Woods of Arkansas, and quickly saw an Ivory-billed Woodpecker close-up. A claim from Scott or Sparling or others wouldn't have meant much to Cornell, but a word coming from one of their own, quickly set them into high gear (oddly, since the major debate ensued, Gallagher hasn't said much publicly in defense of the finding, even though in a sense, his credibility is probably more on the line than anyone else's). Indeed, all along some have complained that Cornell has taken the words of their own people quite seriously while taking the words/views of others, non-Cornellites, with a huge grain of salt.
After Jerry Jackson's "In Search of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker," Gallagher's "The Grail Bird" may be my favorite popular IBWO volume, for it's coverage of many of the personalities involved. But as a volume that was actively being written at the very time of the Arkansas find (and published upon Cornell's monumental announcement) it opened Gallagher to easy criticism of self-interest and non-objectivity. Not a lot Tim can do about such perceptions. As a person with varied interests and responsibilities, his surprisingly low profile and limited activity in this controversy since it heated up, may be explainable, but hopefully we'll hear more from him on the topic at some point. He likely believes he's already said everything there is to say 100 times, and there is nothing to add. But his central, instrumental role in the saga may require him to speak out further, regardless of whether the species is confirmed or never seen again.This is surely one of the landmarks of his life now from any outsider's point-of-view (as well as from his own vantage point).
IBWO skeptics have long relied on one underlying concept to rest their case on, in explaining events of the last 5 years: so-called "groupthink." Take that away and there just isn't much groundwork to stand on to explain various multiple sightings. (Of course, 'groupthink' can just as easily, if not more easily, be applied to 60 years' worth of the skeptical viewpoint, as to the 'believers' side.) Gallagher is either the progenitor of the worst instance of groupthink in the history of ornithology, or an individual largely responsible for one of the greatest avian discoveries of all time. It's possible we'll never know for sure which camp he falls into. ...It's also possible we will.
First update from the Louisiana "Project Coyote" HERE, focusing on some bark scaling/foraging sign in their area. --------------------------------------------------------------------------
New hour-long (skeptic-leaning) podcast interview with Scott Crocker, directer of "Ghost Bird," on MonsterTalk.com HERE. (nothing new, but review of the past from Crocker's perspective)
