"They live way back in a swamp"?

In some circles, much has been made of the "fact" that Ivory-bills live "way back in the remotest of swamps". Since it's incredibly hard to get back there, few humans ever penetrate into the bird's home range.

Is that really true?

Check out this aerial photo. If I'm reading "The Grail Bird" correctly (pages 151 and 152), the Harrison/Gallagher "Ivory-bill" sighting occurred near the south end of the "lake" south of 17. That spot is roughly 1/4 mile from a busy road!

It looks to me that you could launch your canoe from the parking lot south of 17 and paddle to The Spot in maybe 10 minutes. Gallagher said that Sparling's sighting occurred within a quarter-mile of the Gallagher/Harrison sighting location. ALL of the "robust sightings" occurred within a very small (4 square kilometer) area.

Here's a telling snippet from the Grail Bird, page 152:
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Then Bobby started to grouse that we were being way too noisy to see any ivory-bills.

"We don't need to worry about that," I said. "The road's so loud, they'll never hear us coming. And who knows, maybe Gene will chase one back to us."

And then it happened...[description of the Harrison/Gallagher sighting follows]
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Creeping sanity?

Here is an Associated Press story similar to The Nature Conservancy press release that I mentioned recently.

Note that this story is headlined "USFW purchases 1,800 acres for waterfowl". Here's the first sentence:
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The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced on Tuesday that it is acquiring 1,800 acres of land for the Cache River National Wildlife Refuge with $2.43 million in Federal Duck Stamp funds to benefit waterfowl and a host of other wildlife species including the Ivory-billed Woodpecker.
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Ok, so now the Ivory-bill doesn't even make the headline, nor does it get top billing in the body of the article. Why is that?

In my opinion, this wording is very carefully chosen, and it provides a crude barometer of the level of public euphoria about the Ivory-bill. If we had conclusive proof of an Ivory-bill, I think an AP article on the same land acquisition would be worded very differently.

It looks like the Ivory-bill is being "eased out the door" here. If time continues to pass without conclusive proof, I think similar stories will be written that don't even mention the Ivory-bill.

More on groupthink

Earlier, I posted this general information about groupthink. Specifically, how could groupthink have led to mis-IDs in Arkansas?

Let's start with these three pieces of background information:
1. Here's a snippet from an Arkansas Times article:
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Sparling also wrote in his posting, “I also (and I hesitate to say this) saw a Pileated woodpecker that was way too big, the white and black colors seemed to be reversed on the wings, and the white was yellowish off white. You birders know what is inferred, but I don’t have the conviction to say.”
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2. In the same article, after describing the Gallagher/Harrison sighting, it says:
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Sparling, who’d gone upriver a way because, he said, the two were too noisy for him, returned. When he saw the state they were in, it sank in that he really had seen an ivory-billed woodpecker.
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3. On the day of the announcement, in this Q-and-A session, Gallagher talks about his sighting. He talks about how important it was that Harrison was there at the time. Gallagher said "I may not have mentioned it otherwise".

Given the three points above, I think these three people may have fallen victim to groupthink. There are some interesting feedback loops where an incorrect idea can be apparently reinforced.

Sparling saw an intriguing bird, but was skeptical of his own sighting. Harrison and Gallagher, after talking to Sparling, began to believe that Sparling had seen an Ivory-bill. Believing that Sparling had seen an Ivory-bill in the area, Harrison and Gallagher glimpsed a bird and both simultaneously shouted "Ivory-bill"! Influenced by each other, those two became convinced that they had seen an Ivory-bill. Sparling, seeing how convinced those two were, then became convinced that he had seen an Ivory-bill.

I think the groupthink may have snowballed later that spring, as more searchers headed out, each armed with the idea that a confirmed Ivory-bill was present. Eventually, we get seven "robust" Ivory-bill sightings, all based on maybe one fieldmark (too much white on the upperwing for a Pileated). No one seems very concerned that one or more Pileateds in the area did have too much white in the upperwing for an ordinary Pileated.

(Some of David Sibley's thoughts on birding "group hysteria" are here).

Skepticism from the inside

Below is another key section from the Arkansas Times article that I mentioned in a recent post. My comments are interspersed in red.
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Early in 2005, Team Elvis was edgy. There had been no reportable sightings between June 2004 and February 2005, though sounds like the characteristic BAM-bam double knock were heard.

Lammertink, who was growing increasingly skeptical, he confessed, was particularly uneasy.

I think the above sentence is extremely important. If you're thinking that skepticism is just "sour grapes" from those mean old outsiders, you need to explain why this highly-placed insider was also skeptical very late in the game. If Lammertink was "increasingly skeptical" in early 2005, that means that he was not convinced by the flurry of "robust" sightings reported in early 2004, he was not convinced by the double-knocks, and he was not initially convinced by the Luneau video.

It's been endlessly reported that the team "kept their secret" for 14 months while crucial land was purchased. I think there's another reason why the team didn't go public earlier--I think they were hoping to have the definitive photo in hand before making any announcement.

He and the team were about to report to Science magazine that a bird had come back from the dead, but they had no photographs.

But they did have video, shot with a Canon GL-2 by computer whiz David Luneau, a University of Arkansas professor and a veteran of the 2002 Pearl River search, on April 25, 2004, as he and his brother-in-law cruised the Bayou DeView checking recording devices. For 4 seconds, a blurry bird flew from a tupelo gum away from the canoe. The Cornell lab downloaded the video to software that extracted and de-interlaced frames to reveal the detail, and then magnified it.

Viewers gasped at what they saw. A mere six pixels of perched bird now revealed alternating bands of black, white, and black on its back.

In my opinion, this particular issue may ultimately prove to be very embarrassing to Cornell. It's shocking to me that ornithologists could seriously interpret six pixels as a perched Ivory-bill. I've written about this subject here.

If those six pixels are a perched Ivory-bill, I think there are maybe 5-10 other perched Ivory-bills on various trees in the Luneau video. One similar "Ivory-bill" is visible on another tree even as the Luneau bird is flying away.

On takeoff, the bird flaps wings black on the leading edge, white on the trailing edge — the reverse of the pileated pattern.

Still, Lammertink wanted to go further. Over beers with a crew from National Public Radio in March 2005, he decided to re-enact the Luneau video. Bobby Harrison carved full-sized models of pileated and ivory-billed woodpeckers and the team placed them on the same tupelo shot in Luneau’s video. The[y] filmed them again, at the same distance. Lammertink ran through the swamp pulling strings to flap the wings of the wooden woodpeckers. The team did 33 takes and then compared it to Luneau’s video.

I've spent some time looking at some of the fuzzy re-enactment video (filmed March 15, 2005) mentioned above. It's available on the Luneau DVD.

In my opinion, a major flaw in the re-enactment attempt involves the board-like wings on the wooden models that were used. The model Pileated has stiff, board-like wings, and at the given camera angle, it shows the mostly-dark upperwings when the wings are raised. A real Pileated has very flexible wings, and shows a lot of white from the underwings when the wings are raised. (I've previously written on this subject here).

Now, the team was reassured. The bird Luneau filmed was no pileated. Their paper announcing the find was completed and sent to Science April 6.

As I've written before, I think the bird is most likely an ordinary Pileated. My analysis is here.
----end of snippet

I'm trying to get a handle on what was really going on here. It seems that for a long time in 2004, team members thought that the definitive picture had to be just around the corner. But it never came.

If Lammertink was skeptical in early 2005, surely some other team members must have been skeptical too. The paper says that on "2–4 March 2005 we conducted a 'saturation search' with 23 observers spaced across the 4 [square kilometers] of forest in which all the sightings had occurred." When that failed, and with the end of the second intense field season looming around May 1, it must have become clearer that no better evidence might be forthcoming. What to do now?

Maybe the Luneau video would just have to suffice, so they worked hard to convince themselves that it showed an Ivory-bill. As I wrote earlier, they did some re-enactments of the video on March 15, and then submitted their paper on April 6.

Tim Gallagher's seminar online

On Cornell's web site, there is video of a 9/12/05 Ivory-bill seminar given by Tim Gallagher. I found the second half fascinating.

Gallagher finds time to share some long, colorful stories about people getting shot in the foot, cottonmouth snake scares, Sparling's airsickness during a helicopter search, etc. Very curiously, he ended his prepared remarks without even mentioning any of the "robust" sightings after the first two; he didn't mention any audio evidence; and didn't mention that after April '04, yet another full season of intense searching has passed without a good photo.

During the Q-and-A session, there were some skeptical overtones to some of the questions. In fact, the first questioner asked why we still don't have a still photo of the bird. Gallagher responded with "You gotta go there", mentioned the cottonmouths, and claimed you can't see very well. He also mentioned that the team's cameras, even in standby mode, seemed to take about a minute to power up. I'm not sure I'm buying that modern camera technology is the problem, since the Cornell Singer Tract expedition captured great pictures using massive, clunky 1930s-era cameras.

Another questioner directly asked Gallagher about other confirmed sightings, and Gallagher said "Confirmed?", paused, and then appeared to carefully choose other words to describe the other reported sightings.

Throughout most of this long seminar, I didn't notice any editing of the video (maybe I missed some). However, it appears that something has been edited out during the Q-and-A session (right after the question about Hurricane Katrina). If any reader knows what (if anything) is missing, please email me at tomanelson@mac.com.

Emphasis shift from TNC?

In my opinion, if you carefully compare two Arkansas-related press releases from the Nature Conservancy, you can see a significant wording shift.

In a June press release, there was heavy emphasis on the Ivory-bill "rediscovery":
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So Arkansas is home to what is probably the rarest bird in the world, and this fact has brought immediate worldwide news coverage and attention. And we have in the Big Woods a vast and beautiful area that affords literally hundreds of other bird or wildlife watching opportunities. The question is, how will we manage this economic opportunity while never losing sight of what’s most important – the continued survival and recovery of the ivory-billed woodpecker?
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In a September press release, the Ivory-bill doesn't receive nearly the heavy emphasis it did in June--other wildlife species seem to have gained mindshare:
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“The successful history of conservation in the Big Woods of Arkansas is a result of great partnerships – federal and state agencies working with other organizations, local communities, hunters and landowners,” said Scott Simon, director of The Nature Conservancy in Arkansas. “And this addition to the Cache River National Wildlife Refuge is the latest success story – one that will add habitat for waterfowl as well as the ivory-bill and other species that live in these magnificent woods.”

“The Federal Duck Stamp program has made it possible for the Service and its partners to conserve vitally important wetland habitats for the benefit of waterfowl,” said Sam Hamilton, the Service's southeast regional director. “This acquisition at Cache River National Wildlife Refuge is no different. But one of the reason's this program is so important to the Service's national wildlife refuge system is because the land conservation it makes possible benefits so many other wildlife species, not the least of which is the Ivory-billed Woodpecker.”

“The restoration of the entire corridor of the Cache River is extremely important to the habitat of many wildlife species, not only the Ivory-billed Woodpecker,” Arkansas Game and Fish Commission director Scott Henderson said. “This purchase gives outdoorsmen more opportunity to enjoy the natural resources of Arkansas,” he added.
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Please take a look at both press releases to see the above snippets in context.

Great July article in the Memphis Flyer

This July Memphis Flyer article is one of the best that I've seen on the Ivory-bill search in Arkansas. A previous version of the same article appeared in The Arkansas Times in June--I mentioned that article here.

Both articles were written by Leslie Newell Peacock. At the bottom of the Memphis Flyer article, this note appears:
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...[Peacock] is also the journalist whose researcher husband managed to keep the ivory-billed woodpecker a secret from her for 14 months.
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Possibly because of Peacock's close connection to the search team, this article is chock-full of interesting tidbits.

For now, here are a few snippets:
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Why would a philanthropist privately lend the Arkansas field office of the Nature Conservancy up to $20 million at no interest?
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What followed was a Series of Fortunate Events, in which a hush-hush group of some 200 people, sworn to secrecy, managed to keep the chase secret for 14 months (including one researcher married to a journalist).
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Thirty full-time researchers and dozens more volunteers -- Team Elvis -- hit the swamps of the Cache and White River National Wildlife Refuge...
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Diplomacy was needed, though team members say there was amazing cooperation throughout. Bobby Harrison wanted assurance he’d get the first photograph, what some people were calling the “million dollar picture.” Tim Gallagher wanted his book out first. They and others were frank about their motivations, Scott Simon said, and he worked “to make sure their dreams didn’t get lost.”
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Their paper announcing the find was completed and sent to Science April 6th.
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Stuttgart, Arkansas, dentist and big-game hunter Rex Hancock founded the Citizens’ Committee to Save the Cache and drilled his point at home and elsewhere in the Mississippi flyway that the number-one mallard wintering grounds in the nation should be preserved.
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Billionaires were treated to tours of the swamps and East Arkansas motels.
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The small area where the sightings took place, in and near the Benson Creek area of the bayou, became the “hot zone.”
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The June Arkansas Times article contains some text omitted from the July Memphis Flyer version. Some examples:
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Two weeks ago, the [Luneau] videotape got a standing ovation at an environmental film festival in Telluride, Colo.
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Late in the game, after searchers were told the bird had to be verified because “you can’t be a little bit pregnant,” they discreetly teased out how convinced their colleagues were by asking, “Are you pregnant?”
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A sentence about David Sibley differs slightly in the two versions.

June version:
The soft-spoken expert, the Roger Tory Peterson of the current generation, said he’d called the Cornell Lab a year ago after he’d heard a rumor from TNC people in Mississippi.

July version:
The soft-spoken expert said he’d called the Cornell lab a year ago after he’d heard a rumor from Nature Conservancy people in Mississippi.

Team member interview from April '05

Here is a link to an 8+ minute RealAudio interview with a member of the Cornell search team, dated 4/29/05.

In the interview, the searcher says that the Ivory-bill lives in Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana. He says the bird has a "50-mile home range". He describes his distant naked-eye glimpse of the bird, and says he first thought the bird was a Pileated. The bird's definitive direct flight style helped him make the Ivory-bill ID. (Note that Tanner said: "I have frequently seen Pileateds fly directly, in no way different from the flight of the larger bird.")

He suggests that in recent decades, the bird has had to change the way it fed. He stresses the critical importance of getting photographic proof, but says "they have pictures of it now". He says that 14 people can now put the Ivory-bill on their [life] list.