Tuesday, September 06, 2005

Which of these blobs are Ivory-bills?

A few days ago, I wrote that Cornell's distant, perched "Ivory-bill" may actually be just an artifact of an unfocused camera.

If you purchase a copy of the Luneau DVD here, you can see for yourself what I wrote about.

I took the time to capture a few of the many apparent black-and-white blobs on trees in the Luneau DVD, and I've posted them here on Flickr.

I think that all eight of these pictures are probably just artifacts of an unfocused camera. I think that Cornell might suggest that two of them are views of an Ivory-billed Woodpecker. Here's a challenge for you--which two are Ivory-bills, and why?
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1/23/06 update--according to Jerome Jackson's January 2006 Auk paper, John Fitzpatrick of Cornell has admitted that this so-called "six-pixel bird" is likely a branch stub.