-- Stephen Bales News Piece --

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Knoxville news article on Stephen Lyn Bales (author of "Ghost Birds")

http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2010/dec/29/ijams-naturalist-details-adventures-with-ivory-bil/
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-- IBWikipedia --

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Over the years I've evolved from a skeptic of Wikipedia to a user/believer in it. I use it almost every day now for basic information, yet still remain wary of it for more technical or detailed information... or for controversial topics (nor do I ever contribute to it). So, oddly, I hadn't looked at the Ivory-billed Woodpecker entry in a long, long time, but had occasion to today and was pleasantly surprised at how good an overview of the IBWO situation it gives (still missing lots of details and technical stuff, but a good general overview, compared to what it was some years back).
If you've not followed it, worth a gander here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivory-billed_woodpecker

There is also a discussion page for the above main-article page, which includes at least a few added bits of interesting material, including a July 2005 sighting in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, mentioned toward the end:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk%3AIvory-billed_Woodpecker

Hey, with luck, perhaps there will be future significant edits yet to come.
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-- Pileated Scaling... --

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Last week over at IBWO Researchers Forum, Mark Michaels requested help for his ongoing study of Pileated Woodpecker bark-scaling characteristics:

http://www.ibwo.net/forum/showpost.php?p=5628&postcount=592

[ I think you need to be a member of the Forum to contact him through there, or you can probably contact him through the Project Coyote site linked to in left-hand column here; or, if you can't find another way to reach him and genuinely believe you have something of interest for him, send the info along to me for forwarding to him.]
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-- Merry Christmas! --

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I used this once before at Christmas; am using it again (a bit somber, but still too lovely to pass up):




Where I live we're expecting the first White Christmas in almost 65 years, before the day is over... I s'pose some things just take that long. ;-))

Merry Christmas to all!
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-- The Crossley ID Guide --

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Too late for Christmas, but... Richard Crossley's much-anticipated new field guide (to eastern North American birds) is due out in February (...maybe in time for my birthday! ;-))

I"ve been interested in the volume since reading about it at "10000 Birds" blog over a year ago:

http://10000birds.com/could-this-be-north-americas-best-id-guide.htm

More here (although this site is partly under re-construction):

http://www.crossleybirds.com/gallery/THE-I-D-GUIDE-coming-soon

Nice 8-minute video of Crossley talking about the guide on this page:

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/The-Crossley-ID-Guide/Richard-Crossley/e/9780691147789

And a Facebook page also devoted to the guide:

http://www.facebook.com/CrossleyIDGuide

Finally, the Amazon link here:

http://www.amazon.com/Crossley-ID-Guide-Eastern-Birds/dp/0691147787

Many of us hardly need yet another field guide added to our shelves, and I don't know if the book can possibly live up to all the hype it's received on the internet and elsewhere, but it's the first new field guide I've anxiously anticipated in a long, long time. 2011 is looking up already!

[Ohh, and will the Ivory-bill be in it?... I'm doubtful, but have no idea!]
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-- Twittersphere --

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Am now dabbling with a Twitter account for "cyberthrush," just to have in place in the unlikely event that there is breaking news on the Ivory-bill front at some point to put out quickly --- Twitter is very effective for communicating news with speed and immediacy, though not in-depth. More likely I'll be using it for mundane bird, IBWO, or nature tweets (...or Steven Wright witticisms ;-), if I use it much at all. For those who follow Twitter, the link button is in left-hand column.
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-- Just Playin' --

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Ngrams from Google is all the addictive rage these days, simply checking written word usage over the last couple centuries in all sources Google has catalogued. So of course had to check out "Ivorybilled Woodpecker":











Surprised though to find that, in spite of the last 5 years, "Passenger Pigeon" still blows the IBWO away:











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-- FWIW --

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For what it's worth, while biding time, just a bunch of still pics of Pileateds in flight that I've brought together, mostly from Flickr (but a few others as well):

might actually start with this pic of a leucistic PIWO in Texas that I stumbled across:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/gregpage/4724996515/

the rest are all normal PIWOs...

an entire set from Dan Pancamo:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pancamo/sets/72157623987550086/with/4577193144/

and a set from Lillian Stokes here:

http://stokesbirdingblog.blogspot.com/2006/03/pileated-woodpeckers.html

the rest are individual shots, in no particular order:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/matthew_sileo/2447851002/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dotlyc/5110551210/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pancier/2648697891/

http://tinyurl.com/2cvdy2a

http://www.flickr.com/photos/laurameyers/5038986980/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/11750646@N02/3846513027/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/scott2403photos/4868861963/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/26522901@N08/3941796370/

http://www.toledo-bend.us/enlarge.asp?caption=Pileated+Woodpecker+in+Flight&pic=gallery/woodpecker/IMG_5032w

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jrnikon/4526488445/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/donaldsducks/2990028577/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/imagehunter1/5108833094/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ah_pics/3512990714/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/earl_reinink/4541431351/in/photostream/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/earl_reinink/4541431237/in/photostream/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/earl_reinink/4541430943/in/set-72157623157372620/

(if any of the links don't work properly let me know; haven't tested them all)

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-- Satellite Searching --

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A reader sends in below link to a story on using satellite lasers to pinpoint forest habitat with the tree size and density favorable to Pileated Woodpeckers (ground searches still needed to find individual birds). The work cited is actually done in Idaho, far-removed from the American Southeast, and I suspect by now, from both ground and air searches, we already have a pretty good idea of the forest habitat throughout the Southeast that best matches the Tannertype-profile for IBWO habitat (IF that profile is even accurate), but still one-more potential technological tool for the IBWO search, if needed:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11867165

All of this reminds me that I still haven't heard anything further about any specific involvement of "BirdLife International" in the IBWO search after they announced over a year ago that they'd be focusing some efforts on several dozens species including the Ivory-bill. If any of you Brits (a Brit sent in the above link) know anything further about that storyline let us know.
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-- Auburn Back Up --

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The Auburn Choctawhatchee search pages are back up now here:

http://www.auburn.edu/academic/science_math/cosam/departments/biology/faculty/webpages/hill/ivorybill/

[...someone a few posts back was asking where details of Tyler Hicks' sightings could be found; they are included here:
http://www.auburn.edu/academic/science_math/cosam/departments/biology/faculty/webpages/hill/ivorybill/FieldNotes2006.pdf ]

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-- Project Coyote Update --

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The latest update from Mark Michaels of the Project Coyote team in La. is now posted as a pdf, focusing largely on bark scaling/chips in their area, along with other analyses:

http://www.south-run.com/coyote/MAMNov2010Report.pdf
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-- "Ghost Bird" DVD --

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Scott Crocker's documentary "Ghost Bird" is now available on DVD:

http://tinyurl.com/2efyqxy

http://tinyurl.com/27oc9x5 (Amazon link)

Addendum: I see that in honor of the Crocker DVD release, Amy over at "Magnificent Frigatebird" blog is promoting her Ivory-bill T-shirts to all you Holiday shoppers! If you 'believe,' 'want to believe,' or are just 'wild about Ivory-bills,' check 'em out:

http://tinyurl.com/2daz9v8
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-- Computer Graphic Animations --

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Here's some short animations of Ivory-bills in flight, from a former Cornell computer graphics student, first showing a skeletonized IBWO, and then two brief swamp scenes (ALL animations):
(I'm not vouching for how accurate or realistic these are, but perhaps someone will find them useful?)

Fola Akinola: Show Reel 2008 from Fola Akinola on Vimeo.

Best to go to Vimeo to view in larger format, or simply click on full-screen button above (arrows button).

ADDENDUM: I assume this work by Akinola must somehow be related to the work I've previously reported on by Jeff Wang at Cornell, which was ultimately inconclusive, but which researchers had hoped might show an IBWO to be a better match than a PIWO for the Luneau video bird. This longish, but interesting article summarizes much of that work of Wang et.al.:

http://tinyurl.com/2926ptz

....and on a sidenote, apologies to readers who are awaiting more interviews... they're not trickling in as fast as I'd surmised. I'll be sending out some reminder-notes in a few days to folks who said they'd likely take part, or, if you read this you can take this as a reminder! :-)
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-- And Now For Something Completely Different... --

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"I can levitate birds... but nobody cares."

Some comic relief... It's Steven Wright's birthday today, so in honor of that:



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-- A Li'l Nostalgia --

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The below link (from the heady days of the 2005 announcement) arrived in my inbox this weekend and I thought it was just one of the many previous radio stories on Brinkley, Arkansas and Sufjan Stevens that I've linked to in the past. But listening to it I don't recall(?) using it before, and it makes for 12 minutes of some pleasant Sunday listening (even though it's old stuff), interweaving Brinkley with Stevens' ode to the IBWO:

http://www.qualitypeoples.com/the-lord-god-bird
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