-- Remote Camerawork --

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In a new post David Luneau links to a page explaining a little more about processing the remote time-lapse photography of chosen cavities and scaling sites in the Big Woods. Even with some realization of how time-consuming the work must be I was rather taken aback by his mention of "over 250,000 images" to sort through from 2 weeks ago and "over 100,000" from last week (and this is only from a couple of hours of camera use per day at each site). Hope he has more than a few grad students at his disposal.
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-- Mist Nets --

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This blog post from Chile shows a juvenile Magellanic Woodpecker caught in a mist net (usually used to catch smaller neotropical migrants for banding or other study). Mist net use has occasionally been brought up (not all that realistically) in the search for the Ivory-bill. An adult IBWO might well be able to break free of a mist net or become dangerously entangled trying, if you could even determine the best place to place one.
Somewhat interestingly, in handling the captured bird, this blogger mentions she was "somewhat afraid it was going to stab my eyeballs out with its huge, tree shattering bill." As an aside, this is in fact what happens toward the end of Greg Lewbart's old novel, Ivory Hunters, when one of the principal characters is killed by being stabbed through the eyeball by an Ivory-bill!
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-- Looking To the Skies --

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Of interest: David Luneau just recently linked to this page on the automated camera system (reported on earlier) that is scanning the skies above the Big Woods (Arkansas) for large flying birds. Improvements continue to be made to the operation, although so far as I know there are no current plans to employ this system in any other Ivory-bill search area for the time being.
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-- What If... --

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The big question looming for 'believers' now of course is, 'what if this season ends with no new photgraphic/video documentation for IBWO?' Skeptics have pushed the envelope to the point that any evidence or claims lacking photography is largely nudged aside. Interest and funds will diminish further if nothing more solid is presented this season than what has already been reported. Indeed, similar reports/claims could continue for years without swaying opinions --- in fact, skeptics will no doubt view such further reports, lacking in photographs, as yet more evidence for their rationale of human error and human expectancies run amuck.

It is possible that resolution will never come (although I still believe it will). And worse, if no definitive documentation is attained, skeptics will continue tooting the unsubstantiated notion that Ivory-bills died out in the 1940s. Those who believe the species persisted at least through the 50's, 60's and 70's may be left largely unheard in many quarters, all for lack of a clearcut photograph in the post-2000 period; this would be ashame, that such a likely myth might be continued. And in a sense 'science' has already lost out since both sides believe the other side is perverting science to argue its case.

Final summaries from Cornell, their mobile team, Auburn, South Carolina, and Texas, could contain several optimistic elements, and yet without the necessary photo not receive serious attention, and several other locales probably won't even be heard from this season. After 60 years of talk (or, more often silence), multiple, serious, systematic searches have finally begun, in at least some habitats; may we have the patience to see them through (...with, or without, a photograph in the next 30-60 days).
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-- Entering the Final Stretch --

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By May, Ivory-bill habitat will be getting dense with foliage (not to mention hot, buggy, and snakey) diminishing further the likelihood of clearcut IBWO encounters, let alone good photographs. So we may be entering the last month for hopeful documentation for this search season (possible sightings/claims continue to trickle in from disparate areas, but with the now-required photograph yet elusive).

By now too I would think there'd be a fair amount of data gathered from automatic remote cameras focussed on 'suspicious' cavities (in Arkansas, if not at the Choctawhatchee) --- it would be interesting to know how many of these cavities were found to be used by Pileateds, how many were never caught in use at all, and how many were used by other creatures, neither PIWO nor IBWO --- just to get a better sense of how accurate the classification of 'interesting' cavities is. Maybe such data will be in Cornell's season wrap-up report???
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-- April 1 --

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The Dallas News checks in here on the Ivory-bill search.

I mentioned a couple days back reading John Brockman's latest book, What Is Your Dangerous Idea. In light of the rancor that sometimes overtakes the Ivory-bill debate I thought a short entry there from Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert possibly of some pertinence :

"Dangerous... means likely to cause great harm. The most dangerous idea is...: The idea that ideas can be dangerous.
We live in a world in which people are beheaded, imprisoned, demoted, and censured simply because they have opened their mouths, flapped their lips, and vibrated some air. Yes, those vibrations can make us feel sad or stupid or alienated. Too bad. That's the price of admission to the marketplace of ideas. Hateful, blasphemous, prejudiced, vulgar, rude, or ignorant remarks are the music of a free society, and the relentless patter of idiots is how we know we're in one. When all the words in our public conversation are fair, good, and true, it's time to make a run for the fence."

I don't think I even agree with this, but an interestingly-expressed thought nonetheless.

And hopefully there will be NO Ivory-bill sightings reported today... given today's date. . . .
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-- Apalachicola --

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Article on the ongoing search in Florida's Apalachicola/Chipola region (about 90 mi. east of the Choctawhatchee area) here:

http://www.tallahassee.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2007703310321

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