-- 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.
----------------------------------------------------------------

-- Can the Ivory-bill Be Far Behind? ;-) --

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

As one website says, "By all indications, Tuesday is going to be a big day." ...For physics that is, not ornithology. Tomorrow, according to well-circulated rumors, CERN will claim evidence that the elusive Higgs boson has been found.

In honor of that likely pronouncement, I repeat below (only slightly modified) a post I did earlier this year:


The analogy to 'Schrodinger's cat' has been made repeatedly in the case of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker. Another, more-current analogy one might make though is to the Higgs boson. I'm not competent to describe the technicalities of the Higgs, but simply put, years and years of tangential evidence has indicated its likely existence, yet no proof of it has been forthcoming -- one of the major goals of the much-publicized Large Hadron Collider is to establish the presence of this elementary particle (known popularly as "the God particle"... hmmm, echoes of "the Lord God Bird"). Both the LHC and its rival, the Tevatron collider in the US, have recently found rumored evidence (still being analyzed) for the Higgs, after decades of theorizing and failed searches. Hints, glimpses, findings, calculations, debates... but still awaiting proof (sound familiar?).

I'll confess my bias: Schrodinger's cat is mostly an abstract thought exercise... I suppose I prefer an analogy to the Higgs, because so many of those in the know feel sure it is really there, and just a matter of time before that is patiently demonstrated... may it still be so for the Ivory-bill... not Schrodinger's Woodpecker, but Higgs.


Of course, any announcement from CERN will have no real bearing on the Ivory-billed Woodpecker. Still… one may hope.

Apologies to any who are bored with all the Higgs hoopla, but a quick update:

Higgs rumors had been circulating for weeks on popular science sites with the hype feeding on itself in increasing anticipation of today's announcement. And while some do find today's news release quite persuasive, the bottom-line is more cautious, continuing to take a wait-and-see approach (for something more definitive)… in a sense, physicists have heard some double-knocks and kent sounds and had a brief glance of a putative Higgs, but nothing that can be called "proof." They're now predicting 2012 as the year that final confirmation may come --- uhhh, how 'bout we make that a twofer!

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

-- Weekend Reading --

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

This long, older, Jack Hitt piece from the NY Times is possibly worth a re-read:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/07/magazine/07woodpecker.html?pagewanted=all

And the Don Moser 1972 Life Magazine write-up on the Ivory-bill, which is alluded to in the article, is available on the Web from Google books here (starts pg. 52):

http://tinyurl.com/7mznd3q

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

-- And Back to the Pearl --

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


In his somewhat trademark fashion, Mike Collins has once more re-visited some prior video footage (in this instance from the Choctawhatchee in 2007), to again discover the possible presence of Ivory-billed Woodpeckers. Read his report here:

http://www.fishcrow.com/choc19jan07.html

Per usual, the video is not of a nature/quality that would sway any skeptics nor move the debate -- it's not clear to me if Mike seriously thinks this quality of 'evidence' would alter mindsets. And it is almost embarrassing that he keeps pushing such footage on the Frontiers of Identification listserv where most participants are likely to roll their eyes at it (...at the Frontiers site it is not unusual to have a vigorous debate over the identity of a bird even when given perfectly good and clear photographs!... which Mike's frames are not).

There are, as usual, some frames I find mildly interesting, but nothing at all persuasive to my eyes overall. A nice-sounding double-knock is included in one video, though I have certain qualms with it as well, which are probably unresolvable and not worth getting into. Still, I do encourage anyone with the patience left to do so, to slowly, methodically work through the various clips for anything you can glean from them (...though it may not be much). I suspect the clips viewers might find most interesting are those labelled, "climb knock.mp4" and "jasa_movie1mp4".

For sheer perseverance, perhaps no one deserves the glory of eventually documenting the Ivory-bill any more than Mike does; plus, he has the luxury, afforded to few, of a job that allows him more consistent time and opportunity to look for the species in viable habitat. And if he is ever able to obtain video of a quality that confirms the presence of Ivory-bills in the Pearl to everyone's satisfaction, Mike will, in a flash, become one of the most celebrated, renowned birders in the long history of American ornithology (his various techniques, likely to become standard fare in graduate textbooks)… but, unless or until that happens, the verdict on his work seems, alas, far less promising...

For any who may be relatively new to the IBWO saga, and unaware of some of the history for the Pearl River area, preceding Mike's claims, here are a few older background pieces focusing mainly on David Kulivan's story or the Zeiss search that followed it in 2002 (unfortunately, so far as I can tell, the official Zeiss summary pages for their 2002 search are no longer available on the Web -- hmmm, is this because Zeiss now finds it too embarrassing to be associated with IBWO searches, or what gives???):

http://www.northlakenature.org/CurrentEvents/Ivory-BilledWoodPecker.html

http://articles.latimes.com/2000/nov/19/news/mn-54363

http://www.wildlifewatchers.org/esReports/report29.html

http://tinyurl.com/6psreko

http://www.birds.cornell.edu/Publications/Birdscope/Summer2002/ivory_bill_absent.html

...and finally, brief, general info about the Pearl River WMA here:

http://www.wlf.louisiana.gov/wma/2789

[Pearl River area pic above via Wikimedia Commons]
----------------------------------------------------------------

-- Back to the Carolinas --

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

In a recent post Ralph Perrine reports he will be searching for the Ivory-bill in the southeast corner of N. Carolina later this winter. An earlier search there by 2 technicians from North Carolina Audubon, primarily of the Waccamaw/Green Swamp area, unfortunately found no evidence for the presence of Ivory-bills.
Perrine's post links to a nice, detailed account of 'field notes' on the IBWO from Arthur Allen and Paul Kellogg, pre-Tanner's study. (It mostly duplicates info from Bent and other Allen writings as well as Tanner's later work, but also includes some additional details.):

http://elibrary.unm.edu/sora/Auk/v054n02/p0164-p0184.pdf

BTW, Perrine has a few other blog posts related to the Ivory-bill here:

http://www.ralphperrine.com/blog/category/ivory-billed-woodpecker/

Over the holiday weekend I also got to be regaled with a few more details of one of the previous sightings from the search in the Congaree of S. Carolina.
Sometimes it just seems like we're moving in never-ending circles, though..... (sigh)
---------------------------------------------------------------

-- Thanksgiving 2011 --

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

In some prior years I've posted a Top 10 list of things I'm thankful for around Thanksgiving. At the last minute I decided to do one for this year:


1) The Occupy movement and what it represents

2) Apple Computer and Steve Jobs' inspiring legacy

3) Taylor Swift ('cuz her music never fails to perk me up)

4) All those working on behalf of conservation in spite of the obstacles

5) the plethora of bird blogs and websites that have augmented the hobby of birding, taking it to a whole new level

6) Bill Pulliam's independence of thought and approach

7) Childhood intuition (may you never lose it)

8) Owls, raptors, Pileated Woodpeckers, hummingbirds, penguins, parrots, and other species that never fail to make my day

9) Mike Collins' persistent doggedness

10) Crocs (the shoes, not the reptiles)

In this economy, I should probably also mention having a job and a paycheck, as well (…at least for now)!

A Happy Holiday to all the readers here!

( photo of 3 turkeys via Wikimedia Commons ;-)) )
----------------------------------------------------------------

-- And So It Goes… --

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

The latest issue of Birding Magazine from ABA includes a report from their official Checklist Committee, including the unsurprising decision that the Ivory-billed Woodpecker is not included on the current checklist, remaining instead a Code 6 bird, meaning probably or definitely extinct. The article is available in pdf form here:

http://www.aba.org/birding/v43n6p26.pdf

Meanwhile, Cornell has uploaded a wonderful piece (~11 mins.) with Chris Saker and Martjan Lammertink on the use of a man-made "double-knocker" box to research the Pale-billed Woodpecker in Costa Rica. Although this was only uploaded recently I assume the design may be the same version(?) of the box that was employed during parts of the IBWO search in the southeast:

http://tinyurl.com/7oqqzde

...would be good to know to what degree Cornell will make the boxes available to interested independent Ivory-bill searchers, or at least give out the specifications for folks who may wish to construct their own?

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

-- Some Pileateds In Flight --

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

FWIW, stills from the Web of Pileateds flying, here:

http://tinyurl.com/7ezs5vp or
http://tinyurl.com/74v6ue4

Obviously, you lose a great deal of information in looking at stills versus a video; on-the-other-hand you gain some clarity and sharpness, that blurry, artifactual video may not offer.

And for new folks, here in slo-mo, is one of the oft-referenced Nolin videos of a PIWO in 'escape flight':


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

-- Pulliam's Analysis Continued --

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

For now, just want to make sure everyone is aware that Bill Pulliam has gone ahead and posted more analysis, directed mostly at Louis Bevier's prior work and conclusions (perhaps one of Bill's best posts yet):

http://bbill.blogspot.com/2011/11/woodpecker-wingbeats-revisited.html

And I'd request that if you have comments/questions specific to Bill's analysis you post them on his blog (he shouldn't have to come over here to respond to matters specific to his own work).

ADDENDUM: for quick reference, because of interest in Bill's take on these matters (and new readers to the blog) I've now added direct links in the left-hand column to some of Bill's various IBWO-related posts, right after the list of 'IBWO Links' and before the direct links to skeptics' views.
------------------------------------------------------------------

-- More Stuff --

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

'Hat tip' to Mark Michaels for directing me to these 2 web pages:

http://eco.confex.com/eco/2011/webprogram/Paper30214.html

http://www.wildernesscenter.org/podcasts/default.aspx?a=152&c=0&k=

The first is simply an abstract on the results of the official IBWO search in South Carolina from Matthew Moskwik -- nothing new here, and I don't know that the full report is accessible anywhere on the Web(?) but still worth a glance.

The second is a recent podcast interview with Tim Gallagher from the Wilderness Center site, primarily on the recent Imperial story (starts at about the 24-min. point). Gallagher doesn't give a lot of interviews, and this is probably the best one I've yet heard from him (~35 mins.).

I'm playing with a possible blurb loosely about "null hypotheses" which may or not ever get posted, but for the few who might be interested I'll throw out a couple of other statistically-oriented posts (will bore most, and only of tenuous value here):

http://scienceblogs.com/principles/2011/09/statistical_significance_is_an.php

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2011/11/the-problem-of-false-positives/

The first is an old post from physicist Chad Orzel on "statistical significance" and the second a more recent and more technical post from Razib Khan on research false positives. (I only throw these out because they border on why I'm leery of all statistical discussion in regards to a topic like the IBWO -- discussion of null hypotheses can be tricky at best and disingenuous or misleading at worst -- my first stat professor in grad school blanketly told us to distrust ALL discussion of statistics in journal articles that wasn't carried out by Ph.D.-level statisticians, because most others misapply (or misinterpret) stats! -- though maybe things have improved in the last 35 years since then).

And of course feel free to continue any further discussion of matters in the prior post as well.

ADDENDUM: Tim Gallagher's Imperial story also made NPR today (part of all this sudden attention is no doubt due to Gallagher working on a book on the species… I don't mean that cynically, just that if you have a fascinating story at your fingertips you naturally want to publicize it as much as possible). The segment from "Science Friday" is here (just click on the video to hear the audio):

http://www.sciencefriday.com/videos/watch/10414
---------------------------------------------------------------

-- Further Imperial Analysis --

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

Given the time it was taking Bill Pulliam to comment on Cornell's recently-released Imperial Woodpecker footage I presumed he was doing his own in-depth analysis of the clips. And indeed he was. I think we all appreciate Bill's consistent attempts to objectively analyze such pieces of data (…and all the moreso given that, amazingly, he does so on a dial-up internet connection!). His analysis here:

http://bbill.blogspot.com/2011/11/imperial-film.html

To cut to the chase (but I definitely recommend you read Bill's entire post), he concludes that the new Imperial film unhesitatingly RE-AFFIRMS the bird in the original Luneau video as an Ivory-billed Woodpecker. I won't go into the reasoning he marshals toward that conclusion (focusing in part on wing-beat data and 'bowing' motion), nor nitpick over details of his analysis, nor am I personally convinced that this particular film evidence carries as much weight as he (or others) may place on it, but his take is always interesting. Of course, for most readers here, Bill is speaking to the choir anyway.

Until Louis Bevier, or Martin Collinson, or Richard Prum, or Sibley, or some other major skeptic come forth with their own analysis of the amazing film from Mexico the IBWO debate likely won't move any steps forward, and I'm not sure skeptics will even find it worth their time to closely study this new footage of a lone bird -- I don't blame them if they pass -- from their standpoint it's probably a further squandering of their time.

I'll say again what I've said previously… even without the Luneau video (and regardless of what the bird is in that clip) there is more than enough evidence to believe that Ivory-bills persisted into the 21st century, and may still be with us today. Convincing the masses of that though at this point will require more than an analysis of flight patterns or any other tangential evidence; it will require conclusive, indisputable film, or a fresh carcass... the Imperial film can generate a lot of words, most of them falling on the deaf ears of people who have moved on (and it can't explain why no such equivalent film of an IBWO has been attainable in the last 6 years, nor a single active nest-hole found of a bird that has to be actively breeding to still be with us).


On a completely separate note, for anyone who might be interested, once again an original copy of James Tanner's IBWO manuscript is being auctioned on eBay (auction over December 1st), with an asking price of $500+. Merry Christmas!!:

http://tinyurl.com/7czjqa4
------------------------------------------------------------------