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Not much substantively to report so I'll just pass along a tidbit an acquaintance sent along to me. It's from an April 21st post on a birding listserv group in which a novice S.C. birder birding the Congaree innocently mentions the following toward the end of a routine post:
"...A couple of photographers were standing along the Weston Lake Loop in stunned silence. one told me they'd heard such a strange sound and it came from up in a tree but they couldn't find its source. She said it sounded like a "horn". As I walked on, I, too, heard some non-melodic sounds from a distant tree but left the man setting up his camera to find and record..."
At least mildly interesting given the number of rumors hailing from S.C. over the past year (...and possibly also worth noting that following their sojourn in Texas/La. it was to the Congaree that Cornell's Mobile Team rapidly returned to).
A tad farther north Jerry Condrey (who claims an IBWO-pair sighting in 2004) continues to plan for further exploration of North Carolina's Green Swamp area (near NC/SC border). He notes that not only is the habitat good, but it is largely overlooked and under-searched (IBWO habitat-focus having historically rarely gone that far north).
Meanwhile Cornell has been largely silent on any results from the Big Woods this season. Given the bashing they've taken in some quarters one could expect they might not report any gathered evidence until absolutely all 'i's' are dotted and 't's' crossed this time, but more likely their silence reflects lack of anything to report.
Lastly, although there are really no new arguments to be made in the Ivory-bill debate, Brit Martin Collinson attempts to tie together the given skeptical arguments in the form of a speculative analogy here. From all sides of the issue it's all been said before. As long as sightings claims keep coming in all we can do is watch and wait for pictures. Field notes won't do it, sketches won't do it, lengthy sightings won't do it, audio won't do it, DNA won't do it (it will have to be dated and proven uncontaminated); pictures or a dead carcass are now required.
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From Web Grab Bag:
Everyone loves a mystery (warbler):
http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/mystery
...and a fun recent post from Julie Zickefoose here, if you missed it, combining Purple Martins and Elk of all things:
http://www.juliezickefoose.com/blog/2007/04/madness-of-martins-and-elk.html
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Chatter to my email box has dwindled to a pittance in the last month-or-so giving me doubt that there will be any substantial Ivory-bill news (meaning photo or video) forthcoming in the final weeks of this search season. Even a photo arising from Big Woods, Choctawhatchee, or South Carolina, at this point, could be a tad anti-climactic (...for some of us anyway), so much focus has been expended there. What would truly be exciting would be a photo coming out of a less publicized area of interest (southern Fla., Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, Illinois, N. Carolina) --- not likely happening this go-around.
It may be worth noting again that other than sheer luck from an automatic camera unit (and BTW, the next release of data from the ACONE automatic camera system deployed in Arkansas is scheduled for May 1st), the only likely way of attaining a clear, indisputable IBWO photo is to locate an active nesthole, not a simple task. In fact, FWIW, I often think it perplexing that in 40+ years of on-and-off birding, and living in various parts of the country, I've never even come across a Crow's nest, despite the fact that Crows are among the most common, noisy, large, and ubiquitous birds in every area I've resided; and I've certainly stumbled upon the nests of many far smaller, scarcer songbirds along the way; the nestsites of large birds can be surprisingly elusive however, let alone cavity-dwellers.
If no conclusive photographic documentation is impending, then final summaries this season from Cornell, Auburn, S.C., Texas, USF&W, and Cornell's Mobile Team, will be more important than ever in determining next winter's far more limited exploration. There remains plenty of time and habitat to search; funding though, is yet another matter... In the meantime, intrepid, independent individuals continue their own efforts in various locales as time and practicality permits.
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Grabbed off the Web:
Need caffeine?... well, take a shower:
http://scienceblogs.com/retrospectacle/2007/04/get_your_morning_started_right.php
Got kids?... now you just know they want to dissect owl pellets:
http://www.kidwings.com/index.htm
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Just a grab bag article today on yet another new bird genus discovered (assuming one even trusts such biological taxonomy schemes), this time in the South Pacific:
http://news.ufl.edu/2007/04/19/frogmouth-genus/
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No matter where you stand in the Ivory-bill debate ya gotta love stories like this one:
http://www.ibwo.net/forum/showpost.php?p=2250&postcount=82
Stay tuned.... (odder things have happened).
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....but enough about eating Ivory-bills --- from the Web Grab Bag:
if you eat chicken, you might want to read this:
http://pubs.acs.org/cen/government/85/8515gov2.html
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New update from Auburn's Dr. Hill here reporting additional sound detections (double-knocks, kent calls) from April that as he says, have "re-energized the troops."
(BTW, this past weekend I finally saw Dr. Hill's book, "Ivorybill Hunters," at a bigbox bookstore, so if any of you were still waiting for it to appear in your local areas, might be time to check again.)
....and in the just-for-fun-dept.:
Stumbled upon this old limerick : - ) on the Limerick Savant's blogsite from back when the original Cornell announcement was made:"Extinction is Nature's home wrecker
But thanks to an Arkansas trekker
We could save "ivory-bills,"
And no little blue pills
Are needed to bring back this pecker."
...and here an old post from a physics professor with his take on the Ivory-bill saga.
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A reader sends in this link to an old (2004), but worthwhile article focussed on Jerry Jackson. Interestingly, this was written many months after the Sparling/Gallagher/Harrison sightings, but long before they were publicly announced, or Jackson was aware of them.
http://www.sptimes.com/2004/10/07/Weekend/His_hope_has_wings.shtml
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From the Web Grab Bag:
thanks to Laura Erickson for calling attention to this fascinating report about the possible effects of cell phones on bees, and ultimately on human food production (....just one more thing for certain skeptics to busy themselves debunking I s'pose):
http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/wildlife/article2449968.ece
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