Santa Barbara Independent article

Here is an older article that I hadn't seen previously. It was published in the Santa Barbara Independent shortly after the AOU meeting last August. An excerpt (the bold font is mine):

The scientists were already debating the evidence as they filed out of the hall. Some were hopeful that more research would confirm the sighting; others expressed doubts, suggesting Fitzpatrick had overstated his case.

“You can’t prove anything with a sample size of two birds,” said one dissenter.

Others noted that Fitzpatrick’s efforts seemed geared too much toward proving the bird in his video was in fact an ivory-billed woodpecker. His team didn’t try hard enough to disprove their own hypothesis, thus violating a basic scientific principle—they didn’t examine other possibilities. “There are always alternative explanations,” said one scientist.

For his part, Fitzpatrick acknowledged that what sounded like the ivory-billed woodpecker’s call on his field recording might have been a blue jay mimicking the recorded call his team broadcasted to attract the birds.