-- Ornithological Oddity (OT) --

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'nuther quirky off-topic story I found too fascinating not to pass along....

Report from Britain of day-shift/night-shift bird species sharing the same nestbox (in this instance Barn Owl and Kestrels):

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1220461/Nest-mates-The-kestrels-barn-owl-live-together.html

...seems bizarre, but maybe just evidence that we really can all just get along! (although poor baby Barn Owl doesn't appear thrilled with the arrangement).
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-- Crying Wolf? --

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Bill Pulliam opens the week with a long Tennessee post and some interesting tidbits (...including the possibility of Pied-billed Grebes 'kenting') here:

http://bbill.blogspot.com/2009/10/onward-in-fog.html

And thanks to all who have recently sent along to me some positive or optimistic feedback re: the IBWO searches... but... here's the thing: As indicated in previous posts the troubling part for me is not the lack of a glossy photo, the lack of a nesthole found, the lack of DNA evidence... no, the troubling part is that after 4+ years of supposedly methodical effort we are not seeing an increased number of sightings, especially not lengthier sightings and ones by people of established skill levels. More sounds, more brief and fleeting glimpses, or claims from individuals of uncertain knowledge/experience, yes, but at the 4+ year-point one might expect more. Nothing on an automatic camera, nothing resulting from a $50,000 reward offer, nothing from rapid followups to sound detections. Either the birds aren't there, or they are in such miniscule numbers as to be hopeless, or, the search planning and effort has been a travesty... unless the final reports, when issued, sway me otherwise, that is all I can conclude for now. And, sad to say, of those alternatives, I'd prefer to believe that the search process has been a travesty... but that would be too easy and unfair of a conclusion based on mere hindsight and judgment from a distance, so I can't do that either.

One reason many were skeptical early-on of the Big Woods claims, is that throughout the 50's, 60's, 70's several individuals closely followed up (on the ground) IBWO claims and always came up empty (as far as definitive confirmation is concerned); it happened again following Kulivan's 1999 Louisiana sighting. And now yet once more we go through it again... tempting, tantalizing, enticing hints of something in black-and-white haunting the forest depths, yet always just out of reach. At some point it gets more and more difficult to find fault with the doubters (even though I still think them wrong) and more and more easy to find fault with a process that can't 'close the deal.' The sheer expanse of the land tracts involved may account for the results, but it gets harder and harder to rely on that as a sole explanation, as well.
We all learn early in life, from a fable, that you can only cry 'wolf' so many times before people begin ignoring you (we believers are stretching the limits)... all I can say though, is that one ought not forget, as is easy to do, that at the very end of that famous fable... there really is a wolf.
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-- Fading Interest --

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The Ivory-bill story wanes. Readership at this blog is at it's lowest nadir in a long time, the last two "open threads" drawing no responses. Comments to Bill Pulliam's extended account of the Tennessee search have been few and far between (much to my surprise). The main BirdForum.net thread on the IBWO is running out of steam at close to 14,000 posts, and posts at IBWO Researchers Forum run slow as well. Meanwhile, Cornell seems to be tiptoeing away from the story (their final report could be an interesting read in word-parsing!). Even new claims, sightings, sounds, will likely evoke only yawns from an audience largely worn out.

Bobby Harrison and his Ivory-bill Foundation vow to plow onward as time permits. Mike Collins continues his quest in the Pearl River area, and other independents operate elsewhere with less publicity. Many still hold out the greatest hope for South Carolina's Congaree region; for myself, parts of Florida, Mississippi, and Louisiana still seem the most interesting (but based on nothing concrete). Even the Missouri-Illinois-Tennessee corridor intrigues, as no one has ever adequately explained where the final Singer Tract IBWOs withdrew to as the Singer Tract was being cut over. If the birds flew north and established themselves it might readily explain why no one has seen them for 60 years, as they weren't looked for there.

Messages/sightings to my email continue to trickle in as well, but nothing at all substantive (which is to say nothing more substantive than what has gone before, and mostly less so). In short, despite many of us still believing some birds are likely out there, patience and hope in the broader public has largely run its course. If the birds are found it will be that much grander and splendid of a story now; INCREDIBLE to most minds... and, if they are never found it may be an albatross (so to speak) around the neck of ornithology and conservation for years to come.

Come January, it will be interesting to see how much field work (and where) is generated in the next search season.
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-- Knock-Knock, Who's There... --

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Bill Pulliam's tale of Tennessee double-knock intrigue continues here:

http://bbill.blogspot.com/2009/10/here-we-go-again.html

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-- Another Very Endangered Bird (OT) --

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What some folks will do in the name of science....

This video of the rare New Zealand Kakapo ground parrot has been making the internet rounds lately, but in case you missed it... enjoy:



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-- One Person's Suggestions --

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A poster to IBWO Researchers Forum makes suggestions for the next search season here:

http://www.ibwo.net/forum/showpost.php?p=5217&postcount=224

I believe the 'bottleneck' strategy he is recommending has been done in Arkansas, but don't know that it's ever been done in any of the locales (other states) he is proposing (the ACONE automatic camera set-up in the Big Woods also accomplished the same idea, but it seemed to be out-of commission almost as much as it was up-and-running).
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-- Open Thread --

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For now, I'll just throw out another 'open thread' in the event anyone wishes to bring up a specific topic, question, comment re: the IBWO quest at this point (not expecting much else in the way of news near-term).

Do stay tuned to Bill Pulliam's blog for his ongoing thoughts/account of the Tennessee adventure.
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-- This and That --

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Bill Pulliam's first blog post of the week HERE.

It's reported HERE [see 1st comment below] that Cornell has been awarded (in conjunction with the National Park Service) a grant to place ARUs (autonomous recording units) in remote sections of the Congaree National Forest (S.C.) for possible detection of calls from Bachman's Warbler or the Ivory-billed Woodpecker. This is followup to extensive work that has already been done there.

Speaking of awards.... Yale ornithologist Richard Prum was one of the earliest skeptics of Cornell's announcement of an Arkansas Ivory-bill, only to reverse himself in whiplash manner upon hearing "kent" recordings Cornell had gathered from the Big Woods. He was quoted at the time as saying,

“We were very skeptical of the first published reports, and thought that the previous data were not sufficient to support this startling conclusion. But the thrilling new sound recordings provide clear and convincing evidence that the Ivory-billed woodpecker is not extinct.”

How any scientist could've been so dismissive of the main body of Cornell's evidence, and yet so easily swayed by a few imprecise forest recordings was always beyond my comprehension, quashing (for me) any credibility he could have brought to the Ivory-bill arena.
However, hopefully his credibility and prowess is a tad keener in his chosen specialty fields of bird evolution and feather structure, as he has been awarded a prestigious MacArthur Fellowship ($500,000 to pursue ongoing studies/work)... hey, always nice to see an ornithologist get one of these "genius" awards. All of this year's 2 dozen winners listed HERE.
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-- Wingsuit Flying (OT) --

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Just some simple weekend entertainment... I've always thought that most folks who become birders secretly wish they could fly like a bird... and then there are the crazy folks who actually figure out a way to try it (p.s. kids, don't try this at home):



(this is reeeal, by the way, not faked; they land using parachutes, but are working on suit modifications that might make landing without a chute do-able)
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-- Peter, Paul, and... --

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In remembrance of folk singer Mary Travers who died this week...



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-- Potato Planting 101 --

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Bill Pulliam continues to fill in the summer lull in Ivory-bill news, by recounting his suggestions to the Tenn. search team on how they ought proceed in 2009, given that their primary evidence was a number of impressive double-knock sounds:

http://bbill.blogspot.com/2009/09/potato-planting-plans.html
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-- Why The Rush, He Asks? --

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This week Bill Pulliam starts us off, not with a Tennessee ground search narrative, but with a bit of a rant about a rush to judgment, with statistics to boot! I don 't completely agree with all his points (and those who see the debate as boiling down to a matter of fiscal priorities certainly won't), but one point I especially concur with runs as follows:

"Most birders, even experts who should know better, vastly overestimate the efficiency of the transcontinental birding community as a bird-finding machine. The vast majority of individual North American birds live out their entire lives without ever being seen, identified, twitched, or reported by any birder. For dozens of individuals of a woodland species to go undetected decade after decade even in the eastern U.S. is in fact exceedingly easy, not virtually impossible."
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-- Credibility --

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In the Ivory-bill realm a lot of "credibility" perhaps lies in shreds at this point... Much of the IBWO debate always hinged on credibility: either you believe some of those making Ivory-bill claims (trusting their expertise, judgment, honesty), or you don't believe any of them (you distrust their expertise, judgment, or honesty... at least in this instance) --- "credibility" of individuals has a few objective parameters, but remains largely in the eye of the beholder.
And even though some Ivory-bill claimants have enough experience, knowledge, credentials, to be deemed 'credible,' skeptics would further quickly point out that even credible people make mistakes on occasion. But mistaking one gull for another, or one sparrow or fall warbler or hummingbird for another, as would be typical, is one thing; claiming with assurance that you've seen an Ivory-billed Woodpecker, and being mistaken, is quite a whopper; in a league of its own compared to the 'mistakes' that we can all agree birders do make.

It is unfortunate (and some would say telling) that none of the recent IBWO claims come from any of the most hands-down, household names (of unquestioned credibility) in American birding or ornithology; of course many of these folks haven't even spent significant time looking for the IBWO. There is even a second tier of birders in the country, who while not household names, are well enough regarded within the professional community, that their word would be widely accepted --- no claimants from that level either. Instead, most Ivory-bill sighters come from ranks where there is more wiggle room to cast doubts on credibility (of course these are the same sort of folks who turn in the bulk of 1000's of routinely-accepted yearly bird counts and stats... interesting how they are presumed right 99% of the time, and assumed wrong 100% of the time when their report is of an Ivory-bill).

Skeptics would additionally argue that even highly credible sightings may become UNcredible if followup investigations by competent, skilled individuals fail to confirm the original reports (replication is an essential element in science) --- this too though is mired in fuzziness in the IBWO arena, where additional sighting claims are no longer considered confirmatory, but only photographic or physical evidence is... indeed the more sightings that come forth devoid of photographic evidence, the more potent demonstration it is, according to some minds, of widespread delusion.

Emailers on occasion ask me which claims I personally give greatest credence too --- a question I never answer because the number is embarrassingly small, and readers would assume that names I leave off the list are ones I don't find credible... which is not accurate. There are a large body of claims I simply view in limbo as neither clearly credible, nor non-credible, but too sketchy to cast judgment on. If just 10% of those claims turned out to be credible it probably doubles the list of sightings I'd find believable (not that the number even matters, since finding a single lone sighting highly credible, is enough for me to lean toward the Ivory-bill's probable persistence).

And finally again, given the potential rarity of the species and expanse of habitat to be covered, the question lingers how 'credible' really were the search strategies, methods, and skills employed that have come up largely empty-handed? Like the credibility of so many of the sighters themselves, I'm just not sure what the answer to that is yet.
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-- Moss Island Moments --

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More Tennessee moments from Bill P. up at his blog now. Nothing much new except some video of the area, as he ends his 2008 search season (ensuing posts I assume will deal with 2009).

...And let's see, summer officially ends in less than 2 weeks... anyone wanna bet if Cornell "a-summary-will-be-posted-over-the-summer" Laboratory of Ornithology will have anything to report on the IBWO search in that amount of time (...not me, maybe November).
I'm personally more interested in hearing what Jerry Jackson's take on things is at this point (highly pessimistic, no doubt), but don't know if we'll get a separate perspective from him or not.
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-- Going Forward, Looking Backward --

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Quite awhile back I told someone, only half in jest, that I had deliberately tried, at one point or another, to offend everyone in the Ivory-bill debate --- ascribing that as the best way to maintain my own independence and non-favoritism.
Looking back with 4+ years hindsight, it's now even easier, if one so chose, to take to task various organizations, people, methods that have been part of this story. And before it's over there may be some semi-bloodletting amongst various participants themselves over the non-stellar results of the last 4 years... there is blame to go around in what has been a complicated and controversial process.

It remains difficult to believe that the Ivory-bill still persists and simultaneously believe that the official search process was well and methodically executed. And I'm not even someone who requires a drop-dead indisputable photo of the bird to be persuaded; I just need to see that over time an increased number of credible sightings are coming forth (an increased number of putative sounds, foraging sign, and cavities would be nice to go along, as well) --- that doesn't seem like too much to ask for; indeed it seems pretty minimum for a 4-year effort.

If the Ivory-bill is yet documented I'm not sure there can be much success going forward with its conservation (it's simply, regrettably too late, and I doubt the will exists for the sort of large-scale land preservation/management needed), but maybe we can learn something looking backward (which will assist future cases) to understand how such a lengthy massive failure could have occurred in the first place (if that is indeed what has transpired).

....and Bill P.'s latest blog entry, of Tennessee and djembes, here:

http://bbill.blogspot.com/2009/09/firebirds.html

-- Of Zebras and Double-Knocks --

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It's Friday, so that means Bill Pulliam is continuing his narrative of Ivory-bill glimmers in western Tennessee HERE, this time with an allusion to the old bromide that when you hear hooves clomping don't think "zebras." But when someone intriguingly describes something in black-and-white, and you repeatedly hear certain sounds, and the swamp abounds with woodpeckers, well, what to think, what to think?....
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-- Readings (OT) --

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Sorry, again off-topic today... but have to recommend a couple of volumes:

Someone recently sent me the NY Times bestseller from last year "Wesley the Owl," the 19-year story of an injured Barn Owl raised by a Cal Tech rehabber of sorts; must reading for every bird-lover out there... and many many others as well!

By happenstance, I'm simultaneously reading "Alex and Me," Irene Pepperberg's account of her life with Alex the world-famous African Grey Parrot, newly out in paperback.

These sorts of volumes I think tell us more in-depth about birds (their true nature, their behavior, their cognition) than most $75 ornithology textbooks.
I know I'm late to the table in recommending these books, as many of you will have already read one or both of them. But if you haven't you may want to get a hold of them (...just be sure to buy a box of kleenex at the same time!)



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-- Biding Time --

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Some more sheer bird entertainment here (woodpecker/hummingbird face-off):

http://tinyurl.com/n2s3fk

...and Bill Pulliam's latest Tennessee entry HERE... in which he performs his best Charles Manson impression.

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