As an example, reader Dave Nicosia emailed me this:
I saw a Pileated the other day in a deep forest of upstate NY...flying straight as an arrow! Had a lot of white on its wings too! Also saw quite a few dead trees with bark peeled back...some all the way to the ground and you could see where there were beetle or some other insect borings. There were also many big holes in select dead trees of this forest. I even heard a double rap. The double rap did come from close to where the Pileated flew which I thought was interesting. After hearing the Cornell double rap recordings, this sounded like a real double rap. It is hunting season up here so it could also have been a gunshot...
Point is I observed a lot of the things they are reporting in the "big woods" up here in the north woods. And we know there are just Pileateds up here.
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15 comments:
Ovious this guy doesn't know that the underwing linings are white and that is why he saw a lot of white on this Pileated Woodpecker. It would also been nice if he explained where he saw the white and that is why I just assume he means white on the underwings as the white at the base of the primaries on the flight feathers is really not that noticeable compared to the white underwing lining.
Mike H.
This is an excellent situation! It sounds like there are plenty of opportunities to recreate the evidence from Arkansas, but in this case, the source will clearly be Pileateds.
Here's a chance to videotape a Pileated in such a way as to re-create the Luneau video. You should also be able to record these double-raps, and I'm sure spectrographic analysis will reveal them to be identical to those recorded in Arkansas. It sounds like it won't be difficult, based on your latest post.
You should also be able to do this in Minnesota with all those Pileateds up there, too. After all, science is repeatable, so here's a chance to back up your hypotheses. Shouldn't be a problem at all.
I remember people scoffing at the idea of Pileateds double-rapping, Blue Jays giving kent calls, Pileateds flying straight and level, and the very idea that there were aberrant Pileated woodpeckers out there.
All have been proven to be repeatably observed and true.
It clear that there are alternate explanations for all the Cornell evidence. The burden of repeatable science lies at the feet of Cornell, like it or not.
Actually, I never realized that the Pileated had so much white on its wings. I never really looked that carefully as they are easy to identify up here. When I first saw the Luneau video I was excited...until I realized how much white is found on the underwing of the pileated. With the bird flying relatively fast through the forest...it was hard to determine exactly where that white was. I still think there is a small chance that the IB lives...but, in my opinion, conclusive evidence has yet to be provided.
For some, several sightings by birders they trust is enough to believe. For others, which includes myself, more conclusive evidence is needed to believe. A matter of personal preference. It is part of the scientfic method...debate is healthy and needed here.
I am not trying to discredit anyone. I, personally, just don't believe at this point. I am sure the birders associated with Cornell really think they have seen the IB. I hold the cornell lab of ornithology in high regard. I really hope they are right...and I am wrong. Thanks.
The burden of proof _was_ on Cornell. However, they have published their evidence and conclusions in a refereed journal. These conclusions are, more or less, now the accepted "fact".
Now, I'm not saying that I'm 100% convinced by the evidence, but until some contradictory evidence is published, the accepted view of the powers that be is that the Ivory-billed Woodpecker exists in Arkansas. Therefore, the burden of proof is essentially on the skeptic, though perhaps in a perfect world, it would still be on Cornell.
Perhaps Jackson's upcoming paper will provide evidence to refute the video. Maybe Sibley et al.'s paper will. I look forward to seeing it, and I'm not claiming they will fail in refuting the video. However, despite the claims of Pileateds double-rapping and flying directly with rapid wingbeats, Blue Jays giving "kent" calls (though I must admit I haven't heard the Blue Jay calls mentioned earlier in this blog), or photographs of aberrant Pileateds on Cache River NWR, no one has stepped forward with physical evidence.
It's one thing to say all these things occur, but it's another to provide evidence that can be evaluated. Seriously, it shouldn't be all that difficult to sneak up on a Pileated while you have a video camera partially out of focus so you can flush it off a tree and then show how it looks like the Luneau video. Go ahead, film it and then count the wingbeats and show that the bird flaps at a constant rate like the bird in the Luneau video. I'm sure you could publish a paper in The Auk about that, so it wouldn't be wasted time.
It also shouldn't be difficult to get photos of the aberrant Pileateds at Cache River NWR. There's a population of them after all, right? From what I've heard, it isn't too difficult to get a non-consumptive use day permit. Why hasn't anyone been reporting them on the Arkansas listserv? If they're there, there should be lots of reports and photos of them by now (or at least lots of reports of Ivory-billeds!). As I said before, you could probably publish something about this, too, so making the trip down there wouldn't be a total waste of time, now would it?
Let's face it, right now their whole story depends on the video. I think most people out there don't take any of the acoustic evidence very seriously (except Prum and Robbins apparently). I think there are very few who claim that it's conclusive. Even so, let's hear recordings of Pileated double-raps. Let's hear all of these Blue Jay "kent" calls. It certainly would help draw this thing to a conclusion.
Anyway, you say that this has all been proven to be repeatedly observed and true. Point me to the evidence (other than "so-and-so said it's true"), and I'll have no problem with it.
Sorry for being confrontational about this. My point is that there really is very little published and available on all these subjects. I'd like to see more about Pileated wing-beat frequency, Pileated double-rapping behavior, and Blue Jay "kent" calls. Despite what you say, it's not like we're awash in video and audio recordings of any of these phenomena.
S. Bauer
P.S. If you can publish the spectrograph of the Cornell "secret" Blue Jay "kents" I'd appreciate it. I'm too cheap to pay the $30 for it.
It also shouldn't be difficult to get photos of the aberrant Pileateds at Cache River NWR.
You do realize that Cornell has photos of aberrant Pileateds from the area, don't you?
Cornell has photos of aberrant Pileateds? Maybe, but I would find it _exceedingly_ difficult to believe that those birds have a wing pattern anything close to an Ivory-billed for a couple of reasons:
(1) While Cornell may be stretching how confirmatory the evidence is a bit, do you really think they'd still say there was an Ivory-billed on Cache River NWR if they had photos of Pileateds with large white patches on the secondaries? Give them a little bit of credit. Risking one's career is not something you take lightly. Correct me if I'm wrong, John Fitzpatrick has a respected career as an ornithologist, as a scientist. Do you really think that he'd jump to the conclusion that an Ivory-billed was seen given a series of photographs of Pileateds with entirely white secondaries? At some point, don't you think at least a few poeple at Cornell would have said, "John, slow down here a minute"? Groupthink? Sure, I don't doubt that it can happen, but isn't that situation just a bit outside the realm of believability? (Granted, the continued existence of an Ivory-billed in Arkansas is also a bit outside the realm of believability.)
(2) Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't there a "population" of aberrant Pileateds according to one of the searchers? Unless Cornell went through the refuge shooting all the aberrant birds, wouldn't an outsider have seen one by now, photographed it, and then published the photo? Hmmm, maybe Cornell _did_ shoot them all.
I'm an agnostic. I'm not saying that there couldn't have been a Pileated with all-white secondaries on the Cache River, and such a bird might flap much faster for a longer period of time than Pileateds usually do because of the position it was in at the time it was flushed and videotaped. BUT there are still some aspects of that hypothesis that doesn't sit quite right with me. I don't recall ever seeing a Pileated fly like that for that length of time. Unfortunately, there aren't any Pileateds in my area of the great basin, so I can't go out and try to recreate the video. However, those of you up north certainly have the opportunity to do that.
Saying that Pileateds can fly like that and that they double-rap is one thing, but providing evidence that can be compared to the Cornell evidence is another. You can also say the earth is flat, but I'm not going to believe you if you don't have anything else to back it up.
I don't doubt that Pileateds fly in straight lines and double-rap, but is there any quantitative data on these things? Do they beat their wings as rapidly as the Luneau bird? Does the second rap of a double-rap have a lower amplitude than the first just as Tanner described for Ivory-billeds? I don't know. Does anyone?
Show me real evidence that can be evaluated. Why not have an "X Prize" for this kind of evidence? $100 probably would get you some submissions. Without that kind of evidence and data, we're just dealing with opinions.
A few points:
1. The burden of proof is still squarely on Cornell. As I noted a couple of posts ago, the American Birding Association Checklist Committee is still waiting for "unequivocal proof that the species still exists".
2. Pileateds do double-knock. This has been known for years, and it is documented. Please see this
link .
3. Regarding the kent calls, please check out this
link .
Russ Charif of Cornell says it this way: "However, one issue that we are particularly concerned about is that several observers from our field teams have reported hearing and seeing blue jays making sounds very much like this in this area."
In reference to S Bauer's comment above...just because something is published in a scientific journal does not mean it is "fact". I have read many journal articles in my field that are controversial. There are controversial theories in every field that are published. There are some interesting papers forthcoming...Jackson and, I believe, Sibley, has one coming also if I am not mistaken. These will be interesting.
I'd second the comments against the idea that "something published in the peer-reviewed literataure is established fact". I used to be a biomedical researcher, and I always read Science magazine avidly. The whole purpose of that journal (and the British Nature) is to publish exciting new work rapidly, so that others in the field can react quickly and make new observations, confirming or refuting. The peer review is less than exhaustive, and it is not meant to be, because that would slow things down too much.
At times erroneous information is published, and it is soon refuted--that is the whole point of the rapid publication cycle. A recent example was a now withdrawn 1996 paper in Science that reported on a remarkable synergism of two estrogen agonists (hormone-mimicking molecules), described in more detail here. The lab was based at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (http://www.niehs.nih.gov/--I used to work there). That lab is still respected--the group was misled by one member who was either dishonest or incompetent. The error was discovered fairly rapidly because the findings were so remarkable. I remember a very similar case of an important paper on a novel interleukin (inflammatory mediator molecule) published in Science during the 1980's. The new molecule proved to be non-existent.
Currently, there is a huge controversy over the legitimacy of potentially revolutionary work on stem cells published in May, 2005, in, you guessed it, Science! See this Yahoo news report for instance. Time will tell on that work.
It is unfortunate that scientific errors happen, but they are, sometimes, an important part of the scientific process. Everyone must accept that one publication does not necessarily a fact make. It often takes a while to weed out the facts in the scientific process.
I'll admit that a published paper doesn't necessarily establish a fact. What I was trying to convey is that the federal government has accepted the existence of the Ivory-billed, or at least it's acting as if it does. And an earlier stated purpose of this blog was to prevent federal conservation money from being spent on the Ivory-billed (because it doesn't exist). My point is that I think you'll need to prove why the bird doesn't exist to get the government to change it's course, or to convince the private citizens currently donating money to the Ivory-billed that they need to direct their money to other species.
sb wrote: "And an earlier stated purpose of this blog was to prevent federal conservation money from being spent on the Ivory-billed (because it doesn't exist)."
1. Specifically where did I make the above statement?
2. According to this , the US Fish and Wildlife Service may not be completely convinced...
"sb wrote: "And an earlier stated purpose of this blog was to prevent federal conservation money from being spent on the Ivory-billed (because it doesn't exist)."
1. Specifically where did I make the above statement?"
Was it not in your profile several months ago?
"Was it not in your profile several months ago?"
Nope.
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