-- A Bit More --

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By now, most have probably read Dr. Hill's entry summarizing the 2007-8 season, but still, I'll reiterate a few points from the update:

1. Members of Hill's abbreviated team had no sightings and only 2 'sound detections' in the past season; other sound detections and the few sightings of interest came from independent individuals who cooperated with Dr. Hill, but were not part of his team.

2. Sound analysis of possible IBWO sound recordings continues to be done at Dr. Mennill's lab, possibly with some sort of summary ready by the fall. (Comparisons will also be made to other recordings of interest from elsewhere in the Southeast).

3. One of the more interesting aspects (to me) mentioned in the update is that all Federally-funded search teams this season were required to follow a "randomized search protocol" put forth by Univ. of Georgia's Dr. Robert Cooper (member of the official Recovery Plan Team) in which land blocks to be searched were randomly assigned (rather than a more focussed effort on 'hot zones,' signs or sound detections, or the like). While such an approach might be understandable when seeking to establish the range or population of an uncommon (but known) species, why such an approach would be applied in this instance where the very existence of the species remains controversial and needs further confirmation to satisfy all parties, is beyond me. If anyone associated with the search planning can explain the reasoning or justification behind a 'randomized' assignment protocol, I'd be curious to hear.

And elsewhere, both Cornell's season summary and Bill Smith's show-and-tell book continue to be listed as "Coming Soon"... bettin' I can guess which one appears first.
Meanwhile, Mike Collins is briefly back at the Pearl River in La. (from his Virginia home) following up on his latest efforts there --- how he can stand the heat and mosquitoes this time of year, I don't know, but more power to him. . . .

Addendum:

...Just a note to say that from the feedback I've received thus far, it would appear there is somewhat-less-than unanimous enthusiasm for the search protocol alluded to above ;-))
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-- Choctawhatchee Update --

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Auburn's update for their past season searching the Choctawhatchee area (Fla.) has been posted here. Similar to past summaries... more signs/sounds/sightings but no definitive evidence. Future searching will rely heavily on improved remote cameras as outlined in these passages from the report:

"So where does all this leave us? Pretty much in the same position as in June 2006. We have a large body of evidence that Ivory-billed Woodpeckers persist along the Choctawhatchee River in the Florida panhandle, but we do not have definitive proof that they exist...
The good news is that after years of having remote cameras that were largely inadequate to get definitive documentation of ivorybills, we finally have a remote camera system that I think will work. A major problem with the remote cameras that we’ve used to date is that the motion sensors haven’t functioned properly. Either they are triggered by shadows and wind movement or they only trigger for a large mammal. That left us with time lapse photography—taking an image every few seconds and then pouring over millions of random images looking for our bird. We needed a better way to trigger a camera when a woodpecker moved in front of it. We finally have such a trigger.
Engineers at National Geographic designed for us a seismic sensor—a camera trigger that is tripped by vibrations. In other words, we now have a camera that will only be triggered by something banging on the trunk of a tree. With this new sensor, we should have almost no false activations. Every picture should be a woodpecker banging on the tree. Along with this, the Reconyx camera company just came out with a new line of game cams that are much better than the old cameras we were using. These new Reconyx cameras are smaller, more compact, and most importantly shoot 3.1 megapixel color images—a huge improvement on the .5 megapixel black and white images from the old Reconyx. With these new Reconyx cameras the three mystery birds that we photographed flying through the woods in November 2006 would certainly be identifiable. The National Geographic team has replaced the motion sensors in some new Reconyx cameras with their seismic sensors. These customized units are just being completed as I send this update. In the next couple of weeks, Brian and I will go to the ivorybill site and set six of these cameras on trees with scaled bark or on dead trees showing signs of regular activity by large woodpeckers (ivorybills were recorded to feed on large decaying trees as well as fresh dead trees). These cameras can monitor a feeding tree for a couple of months with no maintenance needed. With this new setup, our approach will be like fishing for a scarce and finicky trophy fish. We cast out and wait...
...Guessing where they will land in this huge swamp forest will be difficult, but we know where at least a few birds focus there activity for at least a few months each year and we think we know what their feeding sign looks like. I think that there is a realistic chance that we will get a clear photograph of an ivorybill using these new cameras."

Of course I hope Dr. Hill's confidence in the new technology proves warranted, but personally still have reservations about the efficacy of remote cameras, over live observers on the ground --- at this point though efficiency and cost are driving factors, and human efforts will no doubt be scaled back significantly next season in most search areas. (I AM impressed with the ACONE system deployed in Arkansas, if one can just find a logical open flyway to monitor continuously for the birds --- but this system as well has had major glitches and downtime.)

And so it goes... still many areas yet to hear from.
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-- More Goodly Summer Readin' --

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This weekend someone directed me to a hysterical little volume by Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein:

"Plato and a Platypus Walk Into a Bar..."
(Understanding Philosophy Through Jokes)

If this book doesn't make you chuckle, or actually laugh-out-loud, you require a major comedy tune-up.
The book deals with various philosophical logical fallacies and paradoxes, but by using great jokes (mostly ones I'd not heard before) as illustrations --- clever (and instructive) concept.
This volume especially made a nice follow-up to Nassim Taleb's much 'heftier' book, "The Black Swan" which I'd recently finished. Even though Taleb's work is a NY Times bestseller, and entertaining in many passages, it is also a bit of a slog, as his ideas, thought-provoking as they are, are more difficult to follow. I'd recommend it to folks here (or more especially to IBWO skeptics), except that I suspect most would find it boring, and not perceive its relevance to the IBWO debate. Taleb's background is in finance, and he draws most of his examples from political, social, and economic realms, though I believe his views on NON-Gaussian and Bayesian approaches to analysis (and specifically, the relevance and even 'frequency' of 'improbable' events) have a lot of application to the life sciences as well. (Taleb's earlier work, "Fooled By Randomness," is also good.) It might almost be a better idea to read these books in the reverse order from what I did.

And happily, all these authors are working on new volumes due for release next year.
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-- Weekend Non-update --

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Jane Goodall on primates:

http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/11

and E.O. Wilson on saving life on Earth:

http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/83

Meanwhile, an emailer asks about a prediction for the Republican VP selection so another short, simple list here (starting from most to less likely):

Lindsey Graham
Charlie Crist
Joe Lieberman

And I'll pare down my Obama list to just 3 as well, in same (most to less likely) order:

Colin Powell
Jim Webb
Bill Bradley

(This all assumes there are elections in the U.S. this year, and that McCain and Obama are among the contenders.)

....Will also predict heat and high humidity (somewhere) for the weekend.

As to IBWO news? ...no predictions for now, but expecting a long, dull summer.
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-- Things Be Slow --

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Until summary info is released from the prior search season hard to tell how much weight will be placed on various sightings and signs that were logged, and thus where greatest emphasis will be placed for next season. One might expect Cornell to have some sort of preliminary report out by end of next week, just going by last year's timetable. Regardless, appears independent searches will continue in at least La., S.C., and Fla., and likely 2-3 other states... and any evidence short of photographic in nature will continue to be summarily dismissed by those who have already closed their minds on the subject, opting for any conjectured alternative speculation over any possibility of Ivory-bill persistence.
hmmmm.... the audacity of hope ;-)

Meanwhile 'chatter' continues in some quarters (and silence in other quarters), and oddly, I've had more sightings claims emailed to me in the last month than in the previous 12 months (mostly older sightings, from folks apparently only recently aware of this blog).
............................................................

Elsewhere:

Nestcam for German storks continues here:

http://www.stadtpark-mannheim.de/webcam/cam33.htm

Lots of guessing going on regarding Barack Obama's selection of a running mate... my list of likely choices is short and simple. For reasons I won't go into (and with the precaution that I've never correctly guessed a nominee's VP choice in the past), I'll go out on a limb and venture the choice comes down to one of the following four people: Colin Powell, Bill Bradley, Bill Richardson, Jim Webb. (A lot of other names being bandied about are certainly candidates for Cabinet or other Administration positions, but NOT V.P.)

Meanwhile George W. is off on a taxpayer-funded European vacation. When/if he returns he may wish to catch up on some reading beginning with Vincent Bugliosi's latest book.

And lastly, from the 'Believe it or not!' Dept. this:

http://iwishicouldfly.com/iwishicouldfly/journal/html/053007.htm

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-- Ponderings --

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Been waiting to hear back from a couple of folks about some things, or alternatively, to see a summary report released (but so far just silence on those fronts). So, in the meantime... :

A couple of examples drawn from Nassim Taleb's book "The Black Swan":

In a certain city there are two hospitals, one very large and one very small. One week, 60% of the babies born in one of the hospitals are male. Which of the two hospitals is it most likely to be?

People's gut reaction is often to answer 'the large hospital' or to simply say it's unanswerable, but in actuality (statistically speaking) it is more likely to be the small hospital: the large hospital, assuming more births (larger sample size), is more likely to approach the mean of ~50% for male births; the smaller hospital is more likely, in any single week, to show significant variance from the mean.

And this:

Given these two sentences:

1. Joe seemed happily married. He killed his wife.

2. Joe seemed happily married. He killed his wife to get her inheritance.

Which of the above lines seems more likely? People often instinctively answer line 2, but in fact of course line 1 is the broader (less specific) of the two, and inclusive of far more possibilities than line 2.
Put another way, in all instances where #2 is true then #1 is automatically true, but #1 could be true in many instances where #2 is NOT true.

Some say that 'timing is everything;' some say 'attitude is everything'... often though, inference is everything.

Previously, at this blog I've asked, 'if an Ivory-billed Woodpecker swoops through the forest and no one gets a photograph of it than does the bird exist?' (...and I've offered that for skeptics the answer is apparently, but erroneously, "no").

All of which, leads, finally and necessarily, to a crucial and weighty unresolved question nonchalantly posed by Julie Zickefoose over at her blog awhile back:

If a man says something in the forest and there is no female around to hear it, then is he still wrong???? ;-)))

so much for today's deep thoughts...
................................................................

Elsewhere:

"Trust" in birding here:

http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/209/story/173336.html

'Clothes' make the bird here.

Dr. Irene Pepperberg's book "Alex and Me," on her life with Alex the African Grey Parrot, will be out next October, and can be pre-ordered here (proceeds going to aid "The Alex Foundation" :

http://www.alexfoundation.org/Alex_and_me.html

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-- On Not Getting a Picture --

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Since she dedicates it to "all the Ivory-billed Woodpecker seekers out there" I ought pass along this recent post from Julie Zickefoose over at her blog:

http://www.juliezickefoose.com/blog/2008/05/i-didnt-get-picture.html

Maybe more news will come before the weekend's over; or, maybe not!
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-- June Approaches --

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"Newcomb's Paradox" is a famous, interesting, and long-unresolved thought puzzle. In fact, it's often said that any roomful of people, hearing this paradox, will split down the middle between those fiercely defending one possible solution and those just as assuredly supporting the alternative possible solution --- and no amount of arguing or persuasion will change many minds. If you're not already familiar with it, here is one intro to the paradox (but there's a lot of other available literature on it) :

http://members.aol.com/kiekeben/newcomb.html

Why do I even bother bringing it up... a space-filler ;-) and, because, yes, I think it has something to say about the nature of the Ivory-bill debate (where the species' existence at the present moment is either 100% true or 0% true and not some number in-between). In fact, it might be interesting to know if there is any correlation between where IBWO atheists, agnostics, and believers come down in their response to the paradox, or simply no pattern at all.


In other news, members of the Bush Administration (who appear not to walk upon the Earth, so much as slither), express surprise, shock, and anger, once again, at truth managing to get out, despite unremitting countermeasures taken to prevent it....
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-- Butler Film --

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Another film review of George Butler's "The Lord God Bird" here.

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"The fact that human intuition is ill suited to situations involving uncertainty was known as early as the 1930s, when researchers noted that people could neither make up a sequence of numbers that passed mathematical tests for randomness nor recognize reliably whether a given string was randomly generated. In the past few decades a new academic field has emerged to study how people make judgments and decisions when faced with imperfect or incomplete information. Their research has shown that when chance is involved, people's thought processes are often seriously flawed....
Random processes are fundamental in nature and are ubiquitous in our everyday lives, yet most people do not understand them or think much about them."

-- Leonard Mlodinow, from "The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives" 2008

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