-- Ode to a Ghost --

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While biding time, this older elegy to the Ivory-bill from poet Susan Wood:

http://www.nereview.com/27-4/wood.html
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-- Spring Shopping --

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Seen in someone's backyard, perhaps:

http://www.birdfeedershoppe.com/proddetail.asp?prod=PD52698

or, from Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/6flvgbe
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-- Another Testimonial --

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Speaking of Arthur Allen, one of the responses I got when I asked for people's memories of what drew them to the Ivory-bill story decades ago, came from Chris Feeney of Georgia, who credited Allen with spurring his childhood interest. Chris's account ran as follows:

"I have had an interest in the Ivory-billed Woodpecker since I was eight years old. My grandmother along with my aunt got me interested in birds. I spent every summer on my grandparents farm near Indiana, Pennsylvania. In 1954 my grandmother got a copy of "Stalking Birds with Color Camera" by Arthur A. Allen. I looked at all the color photos, but the bird that drew my attention more than any other was the black and white photo of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker. My grandmother also had the National Geographic books that had the account of Allen's visit to the Singer Tract and his teams subsequent location of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker nest. When we visited the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh, the Ivory-billed specimens were always the highlight.

In 1958 my grandmother and a friend decided to take a trip around the country while they were still able to travel. My grandfather had passed away, and my grandmother wanted to visit some of the great National Parks again. I went along. Even though it was a "tourist" trip, bird watching was a priority. We stopped at a number of places with museums. One of these was in Hastings, Nebraska. I was very surprised to see a display with several Ivory-billed Woodpeckers. After a journey that took us all the way to British Columbia and down the coast to California, we stopped at the Grassy Lake Hunt Club near Hope, Arkansas on the way home. This spot was in "A Guide to Bird Finding" by Olin S. Pettingill, Jr. We checked in with the caretaker's wife, and birded the area for a bit. I got my life Anhinga there, so I was excited. It was a very hot day. The caretaker's wife invited us in for some lemonade. She got us our drinks, and then pulled out Chester A. Reed's bird guide. She turned to the page that had the Pileated Woodpecker and said "We have these all around". I would have loved to see one, as it also would have been a life bird. Then she turned a few more pages and showed us the Ivory-billed Woodpecker. I was stunned when she said "You know, we have had a few of these here as well". She clearly knew the difference.

I have been chasing the Ivory-bill off and on since then. I was not able to go to Texas in the 1960's to look for the birds in Big Thicket, as I was in school in California at the time. However, I wrote all the experts at the time for information on the Ivory-bill. I have letters from Dr. James Tanner, Dr. George Lowery, Mr. Whitney Eastman (who sent me a copy of his article "My 10 Year Search for the Ivory-billed Woodpecker", and also Mr. John Dennis. I corresponded with Mr. Dennis in the 1980's when the Ivory-bill was reported in the Atchafalaya Basin. He got me linked up with a person who worked at LSU and knew the locals in the area. With his help I was able to spend 9 days looking for the Ivory-bill, and also got to examine the Ivory-bill specimens in the LSU collection.

Since the Arkansas sightings I have spent field time in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, South Carolina, and Florida searching. I feel strongly I have heard the bird in both Arkansas and Florida (calls, no double knocks). No good sightings though, but I keep looking.

It all started with the photo on page 2 of 'Stalking Birds with Color Camera'."

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-- 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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