-- WWAAD --

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Perhaps it's karmic... I'd recently been thinking of doing a blog post inquiring "What would Arthur Allen do?," regarding past ornithological icon Arthur A. Allen (Ivory-bill-documenter, and founder of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology). But I'll forgo my idle thoughts in favor of just linking to Stephen Lyn Bales' latest post which also briefly alludes to Allen's notions here:

http://ivorybillwoodpecker.blogspot.com/2011/04/arthur-allens-early-views-on-vanishing.html
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-- Of Camels and Thoroughbreds --

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A camel, it has been said, is 'a horse designed by a committee'. . . . .

Traditionally, April/May are the last 2 months for much Ivory-bill searching before the heat/humidity/bugs of summer preclude much deep woods activity. And I don't foresee anything on the horizon likely to alter how things stand at this point. Indeed, in 5 years of reports coming into my email in addition to what shows up on the Web, I just haven't seen anything terribly convincing since the original Big Woods and Choctawhatchee reports... plenty of intriguing stories/claims certainly, but nothing really compelling, in my view, from any single locale. I'll await to see what Cornell has to say in their final report on the subject, but not expecting any more insights there than what is already in print.
IF confirmation of IBWOs ever comes I suspect it is liable to be sudden and unexpected, without much news leading up to it.

So why the camel???... I've long thought that the scarcity of results achieved by Tanner, and Jackson, and countless others along the way, was simply due to a lack of manpower and resources. If only a large-scale, organized, systematic search for IBWOs was conducted throughout the Southeast, Ivory-bills would be documented to everyone's satisfaction, in a reasonable amount of time... so I thought... Multiple Government and University-backed personnel with money, equipment, and training surely could accomplish what had eluded lone searchers. BUT, they haven't. Though independents can search more stealthily and make quicker decisions, than a large team, I still believe they are hampered tremendously by the sheer immensity of the task, short of a very HOT, hot-zone being found.
One has to wonder at this point though, given the results, if IBWO-searching-by-large-committee is itself an inherently flawed-and-bumbling approach (I don't think so, but it did have problems/issues, and I'm left to wonder). In any event, it is largely up to a steadily-decreasing cadre of independents now. I just wish Cornell or USFWS could direct them specifically where best to expend their limited time and energy out of the still many interesting, potential locales... but as best I can tell, after 6 years of study, sadly, they barely have any clue themselves.
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-- Pelagic Ghost Bird --

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Paul Hess reports at the ABA Blog on another 'bird of hope,' the Bermuda Petrel, a long-distance flier, once thought extinct, now recovering though still very scarce:

http://blog.aba.org/2011/03/a-bird-of-hope-a-mystery-solved.html
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-- "Passion" to "Melancholy" --

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Haven't heard a whole lot publicly from Tim Gallagher (one of the original early Big Woods sighters of the IBWO, and author of "The Grail Bird") since the story has dragged on, but he is interviewed as the first second (about 6 mins. in) story in this recent Web podcast:

http://podcast.cbc.ca/mp3/dnto_20110326_47229.mp3

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-- Leucistic PIWO in PA. --

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Wow! Corey at "10000 Birds" blog reports on a gorgeously leucistic Pileated Woodpecker from Pennsylvania here:

http://10000birds.com/leucistic-pileated-woodpecker.htm

...not a specimen that could ever be confused with an IBWO, but just a splendid individual in its own right... wonder what the parents and any sibs looked like?
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-- Collins Speaking --

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Sorry for the late notice, but just received the info that Mike Collins is giving a free talk later this afternoon at the University of Mississippi, on his IBWO work in the Pearl:

http://events.olemiss.edu/events/index.php?com=detail&eID=33210

If anyone catches the talk, feel free to report to us how it went...

ADDENDUM: ...additionally, a reader informs me that Mike recently published a paper on some of his work in "The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America," the abstract for which is here:

http://tinyurl.com/4jedaqm

Further Addendum: there is a link to a pdf copy of Mike's paper (for personal use) on the 3-21-11 entry to his webpage: http://www.fishcrow.com/winter11.html (update: the link & 3/21 posting have now been removed, but the paper can still be viewed here: http://tinyurl.com/3so7oos or here: http://www.fishcrow.com/JASAv129p1626.pdf )
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-- Louisiana Update --

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"Project Coyote" in La. posts a new update to their work, linked to from this page (March 17):

http://www.south-run.com/coyote/updates.htm

It includes VERY faint double-knock recording and pics of some further bark-scaling.

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-- Memories --

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When I asked folks a bit ago to relate how they may have first become interested in the IBWO story decades ago, I thought some common thread or theme to their memories might arise. Only 4 people have thus far responded and I don't see any real commonality to their stories, so I may just go ahead and re-print a couple of the more extended reports verbatim, as interesting in their own right. This one comes from Charles Williams of Louisiana and runs as follows:

"I'm now 63 and date my interest to the age of 12 when I read the woodpeckers section of Dr. George Lowery's "Louisiana Birds." My dad had an autographed copy of the1955 First Edition, which I still have, and it provided me -- a young boy steeped in the outdoors from many hunting and fishing trips in the backswamps of NE Louisiana -- with much fuel for the imagination as well as some factual information and practical skills. For one thing, I learned official names for many of the birds I had come to know -- flicker in place of "yellowhammer," ring-necked duck in place of "blackjack," and cormorant in place of "water turkey."

Lowery's account of seeing "not one but four" IBs in 1935 thrilled and saddened me then as much as it does now. I remember asking myself how anyone could know that the Singer Tract birds were the end of the road for this species, and I imagined myself finding them on a trip to some of the remote areas where we hunted and fished in the Boeuf-Lafourche swamp, along Little River near Catahoula Lake, and at a friend's deer lease on Davis Island. These fantasies were fed in those days not by media reports or acrimonious debates between believers and skeptics but by my direct contact with persons who had seen or knew of IBs occurring subsequent to 1943, which per Lowery was the last year of a definite sighting in the Singer tract area.

One of these contacts was in 1967 when I took a summer course, offered by the Louisiana Tech Forestry Department, titled as a "Delta bottomland land use seminar and tour." One of the foresters from La. Tech (probably 40 years old at that time when I was 20) and I talked about the logging out of the bottomlands, the economics of the remaining cutover forests, the rapid clearing for soybean farming that was then going on the Delta areas (later to be my M.A. thesis topic at LSU, and the wildlife. The discussion turned to IBs and when I mentioned that "many people believe they're extinct," his immediate, matter-of-fact rejoinder was something like "well maybe but I personally saw two about ten years ago along the Ouachita River." The location, it turned out, was in the Ouachita River bottomlands north of my home town of Monroe, a very low-lying area that today is part of the Upper Ouachita NWR. He commented that he knew Pileateds very well and I recall his comments about the many differences in appearance, sound, and flight between the two species. There was no question in my mind that he had seen two IBs.

During the land use seminar and tour, we also visited corporate farms and cottonwood plantations in the vicinity of Scott, Mississippi, near the Mississippi River north of Greenville. This was not far from a tract of land in Bolivar County where IBs were known to exist in some numbers in the 1930s and 1940s, a point that was mentioned by one of the company foresters. Many years later I learned that IBs existed in Bolivar County east of Rosedale in a bottomland tract very similar to the Singer Tract which was also wiped out during the same time period as the Singer Tract. This IB population completely escaped Tanner's notice and added fuel to my belief that a few birds could be out there somewhere. The Bolivar County population was especially close to the Mississippi River batture lands just to the west, which in turn connects just a little farther north with the lower White River area where some detections occurred during the Cornell searches!

A few years after the Delta land use seminar and tour, I became a student in the LSU Department of Geography and studied the economic, technological, flood control, and other factors that contributed to the rapid clearing up of the bottomland forests in the 60s and extending into the early 70s. While I was at LSU, I recall hearing of IB reports from the southern part of the Atchafalaya Basin (vicinity of Franklin, LA) and I recall Dr. Lowery's experience when he presented and vouched for the Fielding Lewis photos. I recall dismissing then, as I still do, the skepticism with which these claims and photos were met in the national ornithology arena.

So I was definitely a believer for decades and I feel sure that IBs existed at least into the 80s. Now I am somewhat on the fence about IBs. I have been in some official searches and my best result was a few kent calls in Arkansas that I could not attribute to blue jays. My evaluation of some of the sighting reports of recent years is they are valid, and probably, but just probably, there are a few IBs still out there. I'm still enough of a believer to always have my digital camera on hand when I fish and hunt in the Atchafalaya Basin areas just west of my current home in Baton Rouge."

Thanks for sharing so many recollections with us Charles....
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-- Geoff Hill Recounts --

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New article out of Alabama with Professor Geoff Hill reviewing the IBWO situation:

http://annistonstar.com/bookmark/12311160-Winged-hope-Auburn-professor-is-confident-the-magnificent-ivory-billed-woodpecker-is-not-extinct
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-- "...under everyone's noses... for decades" --

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Just a couple of misc. bird stories today:

First, news making ornithological rounds lately of a new species of storm petrel recently discovered off the coast of Chile:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/03/scientists-announce-discovery-of-new-species-of-seabird-the-first-in-89-years-.html

Given the still somewhat fluid scientific definition of "species," and sheer volume of earthly habitat, one suspects there could be plenty more "new" avian species still to be found or "split" off from others, but this is the current one du jour.

More fascinating for me, was this morning's NPR report from the always wonderful** Robert Krulwich on a couple of flamingos that 'fell out' of the sky in Siberia one year apart back in 2003 and 2004 (...that's right I said FLAMINGOS), and lived to tell about it... or at least get reported on by NPR. Really, a quite fascinating story --- give it a listen or read if you missed it (I'd never heard this report before, nor had I ever heard of "reverse migration" as discussed therein) :

http://tinyurl.com/6jxfzl5

** that's right JP, I said always wonderful (....inside joke)

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-- To The 'Oldsters' Out There --

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This may go nowhere, but I'll try it to see....

Much of the interest in the Ivory-billed Woodpecker has come in the last 6 years since the sudden announcement from Arkansas, or even going back to the 1999 claim by David Kulivan in Louisiana. But I know there are folks who have been continuously fascinated with this bird since the 40's, 50's, 60's, or 70's, growing up as children or teenagers reading/hearing about it.

If you are someone who has been interested in the IBWO from a very young age, decades ago, and remember how you got interested, I'd be curious to hear your story. Once again email me at: cyberthrush@gmail.com

The purpose would be to possibly fashion a blog post about people who are enamored of this bird today because of reading or experiences they had in childhood or teenage years, long before the current flurry of attention. So don't write me anything you DON'T want to show up in a blog post, and once again you can either use your real name, internet handle, or remain anonymous.

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-- Indian Artifact --

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And now for something totally different.... :-)

Artist/naturalist Mark Ross in Fairbanks Alaska sends in an inquiry about a sketch of an Indian artifact he came across in a biography of artist Ernest T. Seton. He believes it may be Ivory-bill-related. If you can help Mark settle his question, or point him in the direction of someone who can, please reply in the comments, or if necessary, you may email to me for passing along to Mark (the image in question is down below), and here is what Mark has to say:

"Here’s something ivorybill related that I’ve wondered about for quite a while now… Audubon and Catesby described Indian ornaments that were decorated with the tufts and bills of ivorybills. Sometimes fashioned in the form of a coronet. Catesby: “The bills of these Birds are much valued by the Canada Indians, who make coronets of them for their Princes and great warriers, by fixing them round a wreath, with their points outward.” In an illustrated biography of Ernest Thompson Seton (b.1860-1946) by Samson: Adventures in the Wild, p. 185 depicts Seton’s pencil illustration of what may be a wreath/coronet of 20 woodpecker bills. It’s the first illustration of the chapter titled: “Indians and Woodcraft”. There’s no caption or explanation of the drawing. Seton, from Canada, is known for his studies of Native American culture and excellent renderings of nature.
I believe the drawing depicts a coronet of bills. Perhaps ivorybills. Some of the pieces are drawn wide enough at the base to be bills, and these are probably old dry bills that have shrunk and may appear generally thinner than a live bill. Notice the longitudinal shading along the length of some pieces. the longitudinal shading is describing a piece that is angled down on both sides from the center line. A feather doesn’t have such sharp angles laterally from the length of the rachis (shaft); definitely not primaries; maybe a sage grouse tail feather? No they’re flatter, and Seton would probably draw some of the distinct color pattern. Also, look carefully at the longitudinal shading. The shaded side has lighter longitudinal lines within the dark part. I believe the lighter lines within the shaded area depict the “chisel-like bevels” that are present on woodpecker bills (noticeably extending from the nares)."

Any thoughts?.... Any Indian artifact museum curators out there???
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-- Magnificent Magellanics --

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Delightful old David Attenborough BBC video clip of Magellanic Woodpeckers presented by Bill Benish over at his Campephilus Woodpecker blog here:

http://tinyurl.com/4rfszxo
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-- Harrison Recalls... and So Does Caroline Martin --

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On the anniversary (yesterday) of his and Tim Gallagher's 2004 sighting, Bobby Harrison posts this recounting of his IBWO sightings to date:

http://ibwfound.blogspot.com/2011/02/7th-anniversary-of-ivory-billed.html

...and a reader sends me this link to a 9-min. video on the Ivory-bill, from Arkansas middle-school student Caroline Martin:

http://www.youtube.com/user/ARNaturalHeritage#p/u/0/_PqEvlqxrkA

(...some small errors, but great job overall from Caroline!!)

Addendum: Additionally, here's a generally upbeat newspaper piece from long-time birder Jim Williams:

http://tinyurl.com/4gp6o45
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-- Slow News Day.... --

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Could be several slow news days (weeks, months???) ahead, from an Ivory-bill-standpoint....

About 2/3 of the interview forms I sent out 3 months ago still haven't trickled back (again, a THANK YOU to those who did respond!), so I'll throw things open a little wider (for a possible better percentage return), by asking if there are any who have been involved in the ivory-bill saga over the last several years who would like to be interviewed for posterity ;-) ?

I'm looking primarily for folks (optimists OR skeptics) who meet 1 of the following 2 criteria:

1) You have a name or 'internet handle,' associated with the Ivory-bill story, that will be recognizable to readers, who may thus have interest in your views or information.

OR,

2) You have been integrally involved with the official Ivory-bill search in some capacity and believe you have information or opinions worth offering, even if your name is not widely known (you can remain anonymous if you wish) --- IF this is the case, and I have not communicated with you in the past, you will need to offer some sort of evidence that you are who you say you are, and have had the involvement you claim to have (also, realize it may be difficult to guarantee full anonymity, given the questions I might want to pose in an interview).

Any takers? ...drop me a line at: cyberthrush@gmail.com

...can't promise I'll interview all that respond (depends how many, if any, there are, and how much overlap or redundancy they might represent).
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-- Whooping Crane Tragedy --

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For those who have followed the senseless Whooping Crane shootings in recent months, incredibly, yet a fifth bird has now been shot/killed, this one in Georgia (one other in Ga. and 3 in Alabama). There is over $20,000 in reward money for information leading to those involved:

http://www.walb.com/Global/story.asp?S=14061572

One can't help but wonder what this portends for protecting any wide-ranging Ivory-billed Woodpeckers if ever found and confirmed (...indeed some have long speculated that Cornell's "Elvis" of the Big Woods may have been poached soon after his presence was announced... sheer conjecture of course, but not preposterously so).
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-- What's David Up To? --

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I thought David Sibley was rather tired of addressing the Luneau video, and the topic of Ivory-bills in general (barring new evidence coming along), so am a bit surprised he has put forth a couple of "recently-revised" posts/discussions at the very time the topic is essentially dead for so many birders...

one is here (which includes several recent comments):

http://www.sibleyguides.com/bird-info/ivory-billed-woodpecker/

and the other is his fairly methodical analysis of the Luneau video here (forcefully arguing the bird captured on film must be a Pileated):

http://www.sibleyguides.com/bird-info/ivory-billed-woodpecker/discussion-of-the-arkansas-video/

Is this some sort of pre-emptive strike against Cornell's anticipated defense of their analysis to come later this year in an eventual summary report? ...Or a slap at the brief, undetailed dissing USFWS (in their final report), gave the skeptics/Sibley analysis? ...Or just attempting once-and-for-all to pound some final nails in the coffin of this disputed video? I don't know. Just that the timing seems odd, to be returning yet again to this particular debate.

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-- Review of The Crossley ID Guide --

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"The Crossley ID Guide" by esteemed birder/photographer Richard Crossley is finally out... WOWZA!... and now for a longer review:


It's often the case that a heavily-touted, high expectation event or product simply can't live up to the buzz it creates....

With that said, I received a review copy of the new, much-anticipated "Crossley ID Guide," and will say for starters that every birder (of eastern N. America anyway) will likely want a copy of this luscious volume for their shelves... even though it may not be all that some had expected or imagined.

Every birder knows there is no such thing as a perfect bird guide --- each has different strengths and weaknesses (and much depends on personal preference). Over recent times we've witnessed a long string of new guides, each tweaking one thing or another, yet really not all that different from those preceding.
Personally, I never thought the highly-touted Sibley guide, with its minimalist artwork, to be much of an improvement over Peterson (but that's just me, and I did like Sibley's text). HELLO Richard Crossley!! Here, we really do have an innovative, almost startlingly different approach. The volume is a joy just to leaf through! Many things to note:

1) The artwork (which the author calls "the heart and soul of this book") is simply GORGEOUS, stunningly so, and realistic (from 10,000 of the author's own photographs), especially relative to the stripped-down, plain views that have become standard for most bird field guides (which do serve a functional purpose, but still...). Showing birds as one might actually see them in the wild, is at one-and-the-same-time an obvious, yet unique, approach --- especially I think illustrative for beginning-to-intermediate birders. As Crossley writes in his "Introduction" (which is mandatory reading if you purchase this volume):

"This is the first guide that uses lifelike scenes. Take advantage of them to practice so you are better prepared to identify any bird you see in the field. Practice makes perfect.
A picture is worth 1000 words! And these plates contain many pictures. The amount of information in these plates is staggering. It is up to you to take advantage of this."

Still, the key field-mark identifying arrows of a Peterson (or other guides) are absent, and it will be interesting to see if everyone can indeed "take advantage" of this more gestalt-ish method. Richard, by the way, calls his approach "reality birding," to stress the representation of birds as we actually encounter them.

I suspect birders may debate these color plates for some time. Aesthetically, they are awesome, even exhilarating, but (as Crossley says) they carry a "staggering" amount of information. Whereas some field guides can be viewed in a slapdash manner and still be useful, this book really requires some focused effort and study to deal with the rich overload of these 'busy' and complex plates.

2) It's obvious now why all along this has been called "The Crossley ID Guide" and NOT the Crossley Field Guide. It is BIG; bigger than the original Sibley Guide, which took flack as not being a true field guide, because it wasn't convenient for carrying in the field. My own definition of a bird 'field guide' includes being able to easily hold it open in one hand while the other hand operates binoculars or focuses a bird scope --- this is NOT a field guide. It's a volume for the backseat of the car or the coffee table or reference-shelf at home, or yes, a backpack. Still, I have no doubt that for tough ID calls in the future this will now be my 2nd book of choice after whatever field guide I'm carrying.

3) The graphics are so massive and page-consuming (some songbirds are shown life-size) it leaves little room for the text, which is quite small, and possibly not as well-organized as in some other guides (but still very good and useful -- Addendum: the more I read through this volume, the MORE impressed I am with the text and descriptive portions!). Oddly too, the text is in Gill Sans font --- a non-serif font that, while fine on a computer screen, is very unusual (and I think rather unpleasing) in a book format. This is obviously a minor concern overall, but it is quite unconventional, as serif fonts are the norm.
On the positive side, the large depictions elegantly show multiple angles and multiple phases/plumages of most species. On the downside, this means that sometimes as few as only 2 species are being depicted on facing pages --- i.e., if you want to compare 3 or 4 similar species you have to flip back-and-forth between several pages, whereas they might be viewable altogether on a single color plate in another field guide (for example, comparing confusing fall warblers, or "little brown jobs," in this volume is somewhat challenging). For this and other reasons, I think birding novices, starting from scratch, may need to begin with a more basic volume, and this book will prove most beneficial to intermediate and above birders (but novices will still want to own it!).

4) The Guide organizes birds by "habitat and physical similarity" --- this makes tremendous sense to me, but to those totally accustomed to the "taxonomic" order employed by most field guides, it may be annoying and confusing.

5) The book extensively uses the official 4-letter short-hand banding codes for each species --- again, something that may annoy some people, but once more I think a positive and educative development, given how often these codes are now used in the digital age.

6) Even the Introduction to this book is great, especially the section "How To Be a Better Birder" --- if you purchase the volume be sure to read the entire Intro. Indeed, this is a book I want to sit down with and just pour over, slowly perusing each scrumptious page, one at a time, from beginning to end; savoring (unlike any previous guide).

I'll leave it to the more experienced, keen-eyed birders to review this volume for any technical flaws it may contain (usually a few creep in). For now, I'm too blown-away to worry about certain details.
Hats-off to Mr. Crossley and to Princeton University Press for this remarkable, bold effort (just when you think nothing new can come along in the form of a bird guide... KABOOM!). I just wish Roger Tory Peterson was around to witness what the revolution he started has wrought --- I imagine he'd be very pleased and amazed to see this (even though it's a very different approach from the one he introduced!).
...I also wish I was 10-years-old and this book was among my early introductions to birding... instead of being a tad older and probably making my last few bird guide purchases.

Ohh, and one last note, specifically for my loyal readers: no, the Ivory-billed Woodpecker is not included in the Guide (and I didn't expect it to be). Perhaps, just maybe... in a future edition.... ;-))

A few more links:

http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9384.html
http://www.crossleybirds.com/
http://www.facebook.com/CrossleyIDGuide
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