-- Population Genetics & Species Decline --

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

h/t to Nate Swick and the ABA Blog for bringing attention to some graduate student work at LSU focusing on using new population genetics techniques to better account for the significant declines/extinction of some iconic bird species:



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

-- Comedy of Errors? --

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

..... Seven years ago today, Cornell Lab of Ornithology officials made what may have been either the most incredible, or, ultimately most embarrassing, announcement in the entire history of American ornithology. Some of us are still awaiting a verdict on that announcement… (while others have long-past made up their minds). And seven years later, no final compendium of the official search, as promised, has been forthcoming; in fact the principals largely steer clear of public Ivory-bill discussion now -- what was once a great fund-raising tool would now virtually be a fund-raising obstruction. 
But the topic continues....

Many (unfortunately) will view last week's mini-fiasco at a local Texas TV station (implying first a Red-headed Woodpecker and then later a Pileated Woodpecker were putative Ivory-bills based on one local observer) as the mere continuation of a (perceived) comedy of errors begun 7 years ago.

Every few months I still get via email a claimed Ivory-bill sighting from somewhere… and I suspect others in the ornithology community hear a lot more stories than I do. Claims for Ivory-bills continue to show up on websites, including Twitter and Facebook. And YouTube receives several "Ivory-bill" videos each year. In short, even after all this time and publicity, claims from the inexpert and inexperienced roll in… and I don't blame people (too much?) for getting excited and jumping to false conclusions based on limited knowledge. …It is odd though when out-of-the-blue, one of these multitudinous claims makes it directly onto a TV station. So, I do blame a knucklehead ;-) news station when they take such a story and run with it to a mass audience without the simplest of verification (the Texas story was no doubt used, because it included video… but THAT of course is exactly why it could've so easily been researched and junked!). 

I won't recount the full story here; it's already received more publicity than it ever deserved. One suspects the primary station involved was deluged with a range of polite to riled corrections from a throng of birders/biologists… but I also suspect they simply found it humorous that, in a day of Jihadi terrorists, global warming, and economic plight, folks would so bristle over a mere botched animal/human-interest story. Bristle they (rightfully) did...

Because of the nature of the Internet, and despite a later correction from the broadcast station, the bogus story will continue to bounce around the Web in some quarters for days or weeks, reinforcing the 'laughability' quotient of the whole Ivory-bill topic.
A Texas trademark slogan warns us, "Don't mess with Texas"… I'd prefer to revise that to, "HEYYY, Texas, DON'T MESS with birders… puhhh-leeeze!!!" 
-------------------------------------------------------------

-- On the Big Screen --

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

Documentary filmmaker George Butler has been working on "The Lord God Bird," the only Cornell-endorsed film account of the IBWO search, as "a work in progress" since the beginning of this Arkansas-based saga. The independent film has been screened sparingly over recent years, and is included in upcoming Earth Day celebrations (next weekend) at the Berkshire Museum in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, if you're in the area:

http://berkshireonstage.com/2012/04/14/earth-day-with-george-butler-and-the-lord-god-bird-at-the-berkshire-museum/

An old 2007 John Trapp review of it here:

http://birdstuff.blogspot.com/2007/03/i-just-saw-lord-god-bird.html

The film was originally intended as "the first in a planned trilogy of films dealing with extinction," with subsequent entries to focus on the Royal Bengal Tiger and the Lowland Gorilla.
----------------------------------------------------

-- Back to Atchafalaya --

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

A semi-interesting post over at IBWO Researchers Forum from a prominent independent IBWO searcher regarding a recent double-knock in the Atchafalaya (he urges further investigation of the the area if possible):

http://www.ibwo.net/forum/showthread.php?p=5980#post5980

(As a note, the general Atchafalaya region of La. is the site of a great many historical Ivory-bill claims over the years, though the Cornell team that surveyed it didn't seem as impressed with it as several other regions.)

And on a complete sidebar, I've posted about the Madagascan Pochard previously, and a reader sends in this feel-good update on that possible conservation success:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/17616488
--------------------------------------------------

-- April 2 --

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

...just a quick note of thanks to all those who did NOT send me a report of spotting an Ivory-billed Woodpecker yesterday!!
----------------------------------------------------------------

-- Intermission --

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Feel like I ought to post something for the time being, so... just some old relaxing nature video:



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

-- Of Soras, Kitchens, and Paradoxes --

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

Probably ought do a new entry since some readers only read the posts here and miss the comments section… so for any who don't know already, the prevailing opinion to the latest taped sounds from Louisiana is that they are likely Sora rails (I'm not 100% convinced of this myself, but its a moot point since I am convinced they are not IBWO sounds). You can read the comments to the prior post to fill in some of the details, if you haven't already...

One other thing I'll touch on from the comments (and I thank people for not letting them slip toooooooooooo far into 'snarkland' before making your points):

For obvious reasons many (most?) birders no longer wish to involve themselves in the Ivory-bill debate (no doubt wishing it would just go entirely away!). It was suggested in prior comments that the 'mystery' sounds should've been put on listserv groups (including "Frontiers of Identification") for access to a quick, broad range of opinion. I don't believe the "Frontiers of ID" listserv is an appropriate site for most questions that come up here, nor do I think they would even take it seriously (they may even have an unspoken ban on this sort of IBWO material), and I don't fault them for that.

I myself had mentioned a desire to see the question put on the Louisiana birding listserv, though I'm not sure even they would have seriously reviewed it (and I wouldn't recommend it for any other state birding listserv -- by the way, you can't just willy-nilly post things on these listserv groups, but must be a registered member, and that involves a process as well). I do wish that more individuals from the Louisiana Ornithological Society had heard and responded to the sounds, and would still be interested to hear from certain of them.

But the point is, soliciting a wide selection of experienced birder viewpoints is not all that easy anymore when it comes to potential IBWO "evidence." When I occasionally seek opinions on certain questions through backchannels, the response I often get (if any) is along the lines of, "here's what I think, but please don't put it on the blog" or "here's my opinion, but don't attach my name to it." I always respect people's desire for confidentiality, but it does mean that more people weigh in on certain matters than can always be told (though still not as many as I'd like!); at this point 'Ivory-bills' is simply a 'taboo' subject for many who don't want to dabble with it.

I've said before here, if you can't take the heat stay out of the IBWO kitchen… (as David Kulivan, Mike Collins, Geoff Hill, and a li'l outfit called the Cornell Lab of Ornithology etc. can all attest to!); the Project Coyote group seems capable of defending themselves, as they should expect to have to do; other searchers prefer not to even have an internet presence and thus not deal directly with skeptics and criticisms. Part of me wishes that ALL evidence could be immediately laid out on an open table and summarily dealt with by the 'collaborative' Web. But I also completely agree with a colleague who notes that the more 'suggestive' evidence that comes forth without something conclusive following it, the more the IBWO case gets weaker, not stronger. That is the 'paradox' of the IBWO case… the more "evidence" that is produced the WEAKER the argument becomes to the general birding community, UNLESS clearcut photographic or video evidence follows close behind….

(image of Sora via Wikipedia)
------------------------------------------------------------

-- 'Round and 'Round We Go --

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

Thanks to all who've sent along their thoughts on the Louisiana sounds via email… even though nothing is settled; no one writing me is willing to call the sounds Ivory-bills, but nor has anyone pinpointed a really convincing candidate for what the sounds are -- I'm honestly surprised a good candidate hasn't arisen yet. I think the most difficult thing to account for is the sporadic, unpatterned nature of the calls -- the notes themselves do sound like certain things, but not when given in the rather random sort of series that they appear. As I've been leaning somewhat toward waterbirds as the source for the sounds my best candidate thus far (though it has some problems) is immature Common Moorhen (Gallinule):

http://tinyurl.com/88uozh9

Kinda wish someone would put the calls on the Louisiana listserv -- even if most readers there are likely jaded to Ivory-bill stuff, it still may take just one person, well-acquainted with Louisiana fauna, to hear the tapes and say, "Well it was February, so of course that is ___________", and the riddle is over! -- I'm a believer in the collaborative 'hive mind' of the Web (even as messy as it can be) -- the day of "experts" solving things in isolation is receding (and this 6-year IBWO saga/debacle? of inconclusiveness may be an example of why). Still, would also be good to hear the opinions of David Sibley, Pete Dunne and several others, though they may not wish to publicly wade into such matters. We need to put these mystery sounds to rest as soon as possible… even if it's not Ivory-bills, other IBWO searchers need to know what is capable of such sounds. I've recently put the sound clips on Twitter, but don't expect much feedback from that. (On a sidenote, the last people still alive to have actually heard Ivory-bills in the wild, Nancy Tanner and George & Nancy Lamb have heard the tapes, but are not able to clearly rule in or out the possibility of IBWOs.)

For what it's worth, I think the Louisiana team wishes these latest auditory clips to be viewed not in isolation, but as part of a larger body of work (sightings claims, scaling, anecdotes, etc.) that they've compiled over an extended period of time in the general central Louisiana area they are working. Still, we need lengthy, close-up, detailed observations by multiple observers, at a minimum…. and really, photos/video. (sorry, to sound like a broken record…)

Again (so you don't have to keep jumping back to an earlier post), here are the swamp sounds in question:

http://www.south-run.com/coyote/1stsequence.MP3

http://www.south-run.com/coyote/2ndsequence.MP3

--------------------------------------
ADDENDUM: for bird-detective-types ;-), wishing to play around with various sounds themselves, the site I used above, xeno-canto, is here:

http://www.xeno-canto.org/

I like it because it usually has several different examples for any given species; males, females, and juveniles can have quite different calls/songs, and even a single given bird may have a variety of different vocalizations depending upon circumstances.

Cornell has at least 2 sites from which you can listen to bird sounds, their famous Macaulay Library, and their "All About Birds" site:

http://macaulaylibrary.org/
http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/search/ac

And a couple other sites here:

http://www.naturesongs.com/birds.html
http://www.enature.com/birding/audio.asp

Finally, even YouTube will often have great examples of bird calls.
-------------------------------------------------------------

-- Update --

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

Not much of an update (read prior post if you haven't already), but I've been listening to the Coyote tapes repeatedly, and received slightly more context about the sounds. My first impression remains the same, that these don't sound (to my ears), like what I'd expect of Ivory-bills… the pitch, tone, cadence, speed, rhythm doesn't maintain itself correctly through the tapes, even though some short bits do sound intriguing (but, I've done no technical analysis). Having said that, I can't pinpoint a good alternative candidate for the sounds either. Certainly though, a great many sources must be considered:

1) various amphibians

2) injured or 'yelping' dogs or other mammals

3) mechanical or artificial (man-made) sounds: bird calls, tools, hinges, equipment etc.

4) I'm not aware of insects that could make these sounds, but would want an entomologist to weigh in on that.

5) just among birds alone, jays, herons, waterfowl, blackbirds, hawks, escaped psittacine birds, vagrants, and perhaps more must be considered

If some of the above suggestions seem outlandish to people, one must understand that the possibility of IBWOs IS outlandish to people… to rule IN such a low probability possibility as IBWOs, one needs to consider and rule OUT all other low probability possibilities. And from what I'm told, several of the above are already considered and ruled out. Process of elimination is a somewhat weak, but necessary, way to proceed (and I would expect spectrographic analysis will rule out all but a few of the above, though not necessarily pinpoint an answer). My own guess is still that there WILL be an alternative explanation for the sounds (this is the time of year a LOT of forest critters begin sounding off!), but admittedly, with each listening I'm having a harder time surmising what it might be.

I'm curious, by the way, of what Nancy Tanner might think of the sounds, if anyone out there can draw her attention to them. Anyone else who cares to weigh in via the comments or privately through email, feel free to do so, as well.
------------------------------------------------------------

-- And Hey, Back to Louisiana --

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

yeah, we can play this musical chairs game of southern states for awhile yet… ;-)

As regular readers here likely know the Project Coyote Team has put forth more evidence for the possible presence of IBWOs in their general search area in Louisiana. You can go to the IBWO Researchers' Forum to read their report and link to audio clips of extended "kent" sounds (that they believe emanated from two separate birds):

http://www.ibwo.net/forum/showthread.php?t=27&page=10
(beginning with 2/28/2012 entry)

You can also listen to a few representative known IBWO sounds from the Singer Tract recorded 7 decades ago here:

http://www.birds.cornell.edu/ivory/multimedia/sounds/knownsounds/document_view

…or the longer version here (from Cornell's Macaulay Library):

http://tinyurl.com/84ef4z3

I assume at some point the Coyote team will be posting their data up at their own Website for easier, more organized (and long-term) retrieval than on the Forum site.

As long-time readers here also may know, I don't generally find auditory evidence very convincing (have heard a lot of it over the last 6 years), especially if unaccompanied by detailed sightings, and the same is true in this instance ('kent'-like and 'double-knock'-like sounds may not be all that uncommon in deep woods), and by their own admission these specific clips don't match up all that well to the old Singer Tract recordings… thus far, I'm not even 100% convinced the current audio sounds emanate from birds (though I suspect they do); other animals as well as mechanical or man-made objects will need to be ruled out, in addition to consideration of various avian species.

Interestingly though, the La. recording team believe these kent series were at least partially in response to "attraction" methods they were employing at the time. I'll certainly wait to see what further technical analysis has to say about the audio clips (though that likely won't be definitive either), but for now am doubtful they arise from Ivory-bills. (...It's always possible that if I'd heard these sounds in the field myself they would be more impressive than hearing them through a computer sound system though; context can alter perceptions).

I do believe the Project Coyote team is working in a good search area, and hope that perhaps follow-up work will produce more compelling evidence… obviously, locating the general area for TWO possible Ivory-billed Woodpeckers at this time of year (breeding season) would be extremely significant IF it were truly the case.

I've long contended that stationing automatic recording units in the woods of say Maine or Vermont for a week (or even 72 hrs. over a weekend) would likely pick up some 'kents' and 'double-knocks' (…am still surprised that no one, so far as I'm aware, has done such a study to indicate in some rudimentary way a sort of baseline of the auditory possibilities). Similarly, interesting cavities and significant scaling can be found in northern woods. As I think the Coyote team understands, from the standpoint of the current public arena, all such evidence at this point is weak without coinciding lengthy, detailed (and preferably close-up) sightings… and better yet of course, photos/video. The bar is set very very high, to even catch people's interest at this point.

I know some other independent-sorts have been searching in the last month... if anyone has anything at all encouraging to report let me know through confidential email (if you're willing).

---------------------------
ADDENDUM: a Proj. Coyote team member sends along to me these stand alone links to the 2 'kent' recordings (first one long, 2nd one short):

http://www.south-run.com/coyote/1stsequence.MP3
http://www.south-run.com/coyote/2ndsequence.MP3

Further, the emailer recommends this additional Cornell page for a rendition of the Singer Tract kents under conditions more similar to the Proj. Coyote recording:

http://www.birds.cornell.edu/ivory/multimedia/sounds/soundalikekent/document_view

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

-- February Closing Out --

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

Looks like February will close out with even less to report on than I thought might be the case...

Oh well, with spring/summer right around the corner, in the event you want to stock up on some Ivory-billed T-shirts, you can check out a few choices here:

http://www.zazzle.com/%22ivory-billed+woodpecker%22+tshirts

Meanwhile, Mike Collins has streamlined his Ivory-bill website, eliminating a lot of previously-posted material (including the last 3 search season logs). Some folks have made inquiries to me, but I don't know whether he plans future Pearl River updates (assuming his efforts are ongoing), or will only do so if/when there is something significant to report. You can always try emailing Mike directly for info (cinclodes@yahoo.com). Or, if you're looking for something specific from Mike's previous pages you may be able to find it through the Internet's archival "Wayback Machine" here:

http://wayback.archive.org/web/20110701000000*/http://fishcrow.com

His last paper on the subject of course remains available as well:

http://tinyurl.com/883j9qj

And an earlier manuscript (pdf) is here:

http://www.fishcrow.com/plos_manuscript.pdf


I don't currently foresee doing a "Back To Mississippi" blogpost, and yet it has long been one of the states of greatest interest to me -- a good amount of interesting habitat, but lacking the number of extensive visits and searches that Florida, Louisiana, Texas, and South Carolina have garnered.
For now I'll just once again link to Bill Pulliam's 2006 analysis of Mississippi:

http://bbill.blogspot.com/2006/03/mississippi.html

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

-- And, Back To Georgia --

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

It's difficult to truly say "back to" in the case of Georgia, since the state has never been as much a focus of IBWO searches as some other southern states. According to the officially-recognized original distribution of Ivory-billed Woodpeckers in the U.S., only a slim southern and eastern margin of Georgia was ever home to Ivory-billed Woodpeckers.

An employee of the large Okefenokee Wildlife Refuge in southern Georgia recently posted on the Ivory-bill Researchers' Forum about his ongoing interest in the species, and in turn that jogged my memory about a quirky email I received from a friend over 10 years ago (…yes, I save most all IBWO emails!). It tells an undetailed story, not unlike a jillion others many of us have heard over the years, and I doubted at the time it had any significance… but, of course one always wonders… I posted the relevant part of the email at the Forum just in case it had meaning for anyone else, and I'll post it here as well:

"I spent the holidays at my sister's house in Savannah, GA. Three of us went into the Wild Birds Unlimited on Waters Avenue late on the 27th… We were all writing checks and looking at the photos of various birds that were at the counter. We looked at a picture of Pileateds and I mentioned it was too bad we didn't see as many as we saw when my sister first moved to Skidaway Island twenty-some yrs ago. The woman behind the counter very casually commented that her son-in-law has been watching a pair of Ivory-bills on his farm in Ellabell. She said, "he is an expert, well, almost a master birder" and that he was keeping it quiet because he didn't want hordes to descend on his place. She made it sound as if he has been watching this pair for some time."

This was written to me in January, 2002, well-before Cornell's Big Woods announcement (2006), but around the time that the Remsen/Zeiss search in the La. Pearl River region was taking place as the final major followup to David Kulivan's 1999 claims. My correspondent, by the way, sent the same information along to Van Remsen, but I don't know if he ever pursued it (and I can't recall, but I may have sent it along to some other folks, as well -- in any event, I never heard anything more of it). I truly doubt that this essentially third-hand story means much of anything, but throw it out at this late date just in case it does ring a bell or have significance for someone else out there.

Ellabell is in Bryan County near Savannah, Georgia, and interestingly, a serious IBWO claim (noted by Jackson and others) did come from that general area back in 1973. The Ogeechee/Savannah river basin is nearby, and is also considered, by some to be potential IBWO habitat. Having said that, most IBWO interest in Georgia has been focused farther south at the Okefenokee Refuge (where IBWOs did reside in the distant past) -- the refuge has been scoured so often I'm doubtful IBWOs are there… though once again, it is an area so expansive that it can never truly be scoured.
Parts of the Altamaha River basin (falling between Savannah and Okefenokee) are another area of significant interest, and Herb Stoddard's famous (and credible) claims from the 1940s/50s, came mainly from the Thomas County area over 100 miles to the west of Okefenokee. [Additionally, over the years one of my most persistent correspondents has made claims for the upper Savannah/Broad River basin, but has never been able to send me anything I could find persuasive.]

Here is a link to a 2005 post by Georgia birder Sheila Willis covering a little more of the IBWO history at the Okefenokee in Georgia:

http://www.listserv.uga.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0510&L=gabo-l&F=&S=&P=16051

Finally, when Bill Pulliam did his own 2006 (Web/TerraServer) survey of promising southern habitat, he listed his conclusions for Georgia here:

http://bbill.blogspot.com/2006/03/georgia.html

IBWO sighting tales for the Apalachicola (FL.), the Atchafalaya (LA.), the Congaree (S.C.), the Big Thicket (TX.), and some other areas are almost a dime-a-dozen, and yet follow-ups never confirm. If Ivory-bills are actually encountered in these areas it almost seems as if they must be young, dispersing birds (passing through), and NOT resident breeding birds (which could be 100 miles away), to account for the lack of results. And thus, I'm always at least a tad intrigued by these claims from off-the-beaten-track locales paid little attention, that are near, but not directly in, traditional IBWO search areas.

The bottom-line question is, has Georgia very largely been overlooked (as far as large-scale searches go) in recent times for good reason... or is that neglect all the more reason to perhaps afford it yet another look?
------------------------------------------------------------

-- Birdwatching Magazine Links --

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

Birdwatching Magazine's (formerly "Birder's World") updated summary page of their various online Ivory-billed Woodpecker articles over the years:

http://tinyurl.com/7zhavoy
----------------------------------------------------

-- "Odds"/Ends --

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

The previous post took a swipe at applying statistics/probability in the social/biological sciences, but it occurs to me that the physical sciences are by no means immune from the temptation either. In astronomy, the Drake equation (which involves several terms that must be assigned values) was a famous attempt to guesstimate the chances of 'intelligent life' existing elsewhere in the Universe. Now, I have no doubt, based on nothing more than common-sense inference, that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the Universe (or in the Multiverse, as the case may be), but I do doubt that it can be demonstrated empirically with applied statistics. [Correction: the Drake equation applies only to the Milky Way galaxy, NOT the entire Universe, let alone any Multiverse -- the same underlying problems still arise on the 'smaller' scale though.] And while not a huge fan of Michael Crichton, I largely agree with his words on this one:

"The problem, of course, is that none of the terms can be known, and most cannot even be estimated. The only way to work the equation is to fill in with guesses... As a result, the Drake equation can have any value from "billions and billions" to zero. An expression that can mean anything means nothing. Speaking precisely, the Drake equation is literally meaningless…"
(again though, I'd substitute the word "silly" for "meaningless")

Somewhat interestingly (for its analogousness to the Ivory-bill situation) there is actually a second-take on the extraterrestrial life debate, known as the "Fermi paradox," which tries to argue against the probability of intelligent life elsewhere (because, hey, wouldn't we have found them by now?).

On a complete side note, while I'm not always a fan of statistics applications, I am a big fan of good nature writing, and If Julie Zickefoose isn't the best nature wordsmith living in America today I don't know who is. Her latest book, "The Bluebird Effect" will soon show up in bookstores, so I'll put in a plug for it.
And while at it, I've pointed readers to her 1999 essay on the IBWO (pre-Arkansas hoopla) from "Bird Watchers Digest" multiple times before and will do so again:

http://www.juliezickefoose.com/articles/ivory_billed_wp.html

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

-- "Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics" --

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

There seem to be more people involved in individual IBWO searches this month than perhaps there will be the remainder of the season, though I'm doubtful much will come of it (possibly the occasional sightings claim somewhere of course, but probably no photos or other documentation).

Meanwhile, as Kai Krause once famously wrote (only part tongue-in-cheek): "93.8127 per cent of all statistics are useless"..... (though, I'd probably substitute the word "useless" with "silly.")

The drumbeat of IBWO negativity/pessimism continues on with more "statistical" studies of various data at-hand… never mind the innumerable extenuating and immeasurable variables left out of such studies. "Birdwatching" magazine cites the two most recent examples taking this approach (and getting plenty of play around the Web), though it almost borders on pseudoscience to try and apply statistics in a meaningful way to the persistence/extinction of the Ivory-bill (…but then I'd say the same thing about applying statistics to the extinction or persistence of Tyrannosaurus Rex). Number-crunching and math-application is fashionable in many social, and some biological, sciences to lend an aura of empiricism that is... well... illusory.
------------------------------------------------------------

-- Back to the Big Thicket --

----------------------------------------------------------
With no other pressing news on horizon may as well post this Texas Parks and Wildlife stab at hope from the Big Thicket:



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

-- Closing Out the Year --

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

Another appearance by Tim Gallagher on NPR last week re-telling his quest for the Imperial Woodpecker in Mexico:

http://www.npr.org/2011/12/23/144190097/searching-for-a-ghost-bird?ft=1&f=1007


As most active birders out there have by now heard, some weeks ago a Hooded Crane (Asian species) was discovered co-mingling with Sandhill Cranes in Tennessee:

http://www.nooga.com/26489_rare-bird-wanders-around-the-world-to-southeast-tennessee/

http://www.chattanoogan.com/articles/article_215970.asp

Obviously one wonders how an exotic large bird ended up plopped down in the corner of Tennessee having not been spotted anywhere along the way of whatever route it took to get there? Given that on any given day (or week, or month) very very very very very very very very very little of this country actually gets birded to any significant extant it's not entirely unexpected. At any given point in time there are probably 100's of rarities scattered across the country going unreported (granted, not all as rare as a species potentially from halfway around the globe).
Many presume this apparently non-banded, non-pinioned Tennessee bird is nonetheless an escapee from a holding facility (a few escaped in Idaho back in 2006), but even if that is the case the question remains how such a large distinguishable bird has managed to evade detection so much of its time (there being just two other sightings of Hooded Crane in US since those escapes)? But then maybe spotting a single Hooded Crane in a forest of Sandhills ain't so easy (or probabilistic), especially in out-of-the-way places.

Finally, a reader sends me a positive note about Daniel Kahneman's new book "Thinking, Fast and Slow," and what it may have to say about the Ivory-billed debate. This long-awaited volume has received outstanding reviews (including making it onto every 'Top 10 non-fiction booklist of 2011' I've seen), and Kahneman is regarded by many as one of the most important research psychologists of modern times (interestingly, he won his Nobel Prize in economics). I suspect his views can actually be used to cut both ways in the Ivory-bill dispute, but I haven't read the book yet (hopefully sometime in 2012):

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/15bb6522-04ac-11e1-91d9-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1dhq0hJbY
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-- The Unknown... --

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

"There are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns – the ones we don't know we don't know." ....Donald Rumsfeld

Major hoaxes have, luckily, been few-and-far-between in the Ivory-bill saga, though they have occurred, and may again. Steve Sheridan's 2009 hoax was the one well-established (admitted) hoax of recent times, and most presume the Dan Rainsong and Florida "magic guy" (William Smith) story-lines to have also been hoaxes (though never admitted). A few folks may yet believe David Kulivan's 1999 claims to have been bogus, though almost all informed folks lean toward either honest mistake or true sighting for that one.

In earlier years of this blog I occasionally had transparent, bumbling hoaxes sent to me via email. Most were lame attempts, easy to see through, even if it takes extra effort to confirm them as concocted. Most who contrive such stories simply lack the knowledge/skills to pull it off, especially with today's means of scrutiny. Still, I've always believed that a well-executed, difficult-to-unravel hoax is possible by someone ornithologically and technologically knowledgeable enough, and with the patience/desire to do so.

It's barely even relevant to the question of whether Ivory-bills persist today, but possibly the most contested hoax/no hoax(?) case is that of Fielding Lewis's tale from 1971. Tim Gallagher detailed the unresolved story in his book "The Grail Bird" (Chapter 7, entitled "The Boxer"); available for free on the Web from Google books:

http://books.google.com/books?id=LVFoNP3LclgC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

Over the years a few folks who either had direct knowledge of the story or knew Lewis personally, have emailed me to voice its authenticity or Lewis's veracity… still, I've never felt confident taking either side on this one --- leaning toward authenticity, but only by a slim margin. [ -- For anyone not acquainted with the storyline, Lewis, a prominent Louisiana outdoorsman, presented George Lowery, one of Louisiana's premier ornithologists, with photos of an Ivory-billed Woodpecker on a tree trunk taken near Franklin, La. with a Brownie instant camera. The bird pictured IS clearly an Ivory-bill, the only question never resolved being whether it was living or a stuffed specimen placed on the tree.] One of the Lewis photos was used in a 2001 edition of "Birding" magazine, opening an article by Jim Williams:

http://tinyurl.com/7vr7fxp

It is amazing that even this instance of clearcut photos only takes us down yet another 40-year dead-end of unsettled controversy. Was the bird dead or alive, breathing or stuffed? Only Fielding Lewis knew for sure, and in the realm of the Ivory-bill, one witness is never enough (Lewis died in 2008; Lowery, by the way, died 30 years earlier, his reputation sullied by his trust in Lewis's claim).
Often people will ask what possible motive could Lewis have had for such a prank, if that it be, but the motivations of hoaxers can be many, and need not include money, material gain, nor fame. So I don't doubt that he could've had a motive, but to his death Lewis never recanted his claims (and, so far as I know, no further relics/evidence either backing or detracting from his story were unveiled following his demise).

Like the Luneau video, different people can view the Lewis photos and interpret them differently. Did a Brownie camera in 1971 accomplish what 1000's of dollars-worth of photographic equipment since then has failed to accomplish? Ultimately, in regards to the question of Ivory-bill persistence today, it is a somewhat moot point whether or not Lewis photographed an IBWO 40 years ago. Still, one wishes the Lewis story could be laid to rest, one way or the other, once-and-for-all… but like the Kulivan claims, the Sparling-Gallagher-Harrison claims, Tyler Hicks' report, etc. etc., apparently it cannot. It remains in the over-flowing dustbin of the curious, the tantalizing, the frustrating, the aggravating, the likely forever-unknown, that so enshroud this ornithological quagmire.
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