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.

Ivory-bill as a sales tool

Cornell just sent me a mailing urging me to spend $35-$100 to join their Lab. The Ivory-bill seems to be everywhere in this mailing; in the letter, it's mentioned in all three opening paragraphs and two of three closing paragraphs.

Several Ivory-bill pictures are found elsewhere in the mailing, including one on the envelope itself. All are drawings/paintings, except for one photo from 1935.

In my opinion, in sales material like this, it's smart to use a clear 70-year-old Ivory-bill photo, rather than showing some frame captures from the Luneau video...

Abstracts from a recent symposium

Abstracts from a recent Ivory-bill Symposium are available here.

Here's a dubious claim from the very first abstract ("Rediscovery of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker"):

Sound recordings by the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology indicate the existence of at least several individuals.

Other Campephilus woodpeckers

Phil Tongier is an amateur naturalist living in Salina, Kansas; his professional background is in psychology and law. Yesterday, Phil emailed me this:

I think that your red flags end the debate conclusively. After re-reading definitive information on the IBWP (and the same on the Pileated) I do not even have a minimal belief that the IBWP exists in the Cache and White River areas. The lingering assertion that we dealing with a "wary" remnant population is preposterous.

I assume that the believers are aware that genus Campephilus consists of at least 6 living representative species. It is easy to look up "Campephilus" and select a few websites that deal with photography of these woodpeckers. The remaining species of Campephilus, such as C. robustus, C. magellanic, and C. guatemalensis live in Central and South American forests.

None of these woodpeckers could be termed abundant. All have been exploited to some degree. Oddly enough, in these (surviving) subtropical and tropical forests we have PLENTY of good photographs. Recent ones. The reason we don't have good evidence of living populations of the Imperial Woodpecker, the Northern Ivory Billed Woodpecker, and the Cuban Ivory Billed Woodpecker is that the habitat was diminished such that populations could no longer reproduce. This genus was at it's northernmost limit in Northern Mexico, Cuba, and North America. The primal forests in these areas are gone. Thus, we no longer have good evidence for these species. I'm afraid they are extinct.

I am disturbed that no one has been doing good science and looking at other members of the genus (still living) to aid in their research. One reason is that folks would realize they are searching for a will o' the wisp. Campephilus woodpeckers appear to have been EASILY photographed across the genus. Those that we don't have good photographs for are extinct.

So where are the field notes?

From page 203 of the Dec '04-Feb '05 issue of North American Birds:

Original field notes and videotaped interviews describing all possible sightings are archived at Cornell Lab of Ornithology; many of these add much to the field notes and will be deposited with state and national bird records committee, along with these notes and other evidence.

I wonder when this information will be deposited, and I wonder if it will ever be made public? The last time I heard, the sight records had not been submitted to the Arkansas Bird Records committee (the video had been submitted but voting was not complete). Soon it will be two full years since Sparling's reporting Ivory-bill sighting. How can it possibly take so long to submit a few sight records?

I think it's reasonable to ask for public access to the original field notes--without them, birding stories tend to change over time.

Field report inconsistencies

My brother wrote this BirdForum post:

In the Ivory-Bills LIVE blog, Patrick Coin makes some interesting points about baffling inconsistencies in some of the reports.

For example, in a Natural History article, written by Harrison, Sparling's Ivory-bill is described as having "a big white bill." In the Science paper, the "big white bill" isn't listed as one of the field marks Sparling saw. Why?

In the same Natural History article, Harrison says: on June 9, 2004, the misery paid off. On that date I saw an ivory-bill swoop from one tree to another, a distance of sixty-eight feet. Its wings were extended, and never flapping.

In the Science paper, the encounter was described like this: 9 June 2004 Harrison saw a large woodpecker flush from near the base of a bald-cypress, Taxodium distichum, about 15 m in front of him, and with naked eye he noted broad white trailing edges to wings, especially visible as the bird swooped upward to land;

I find this one especially troubling. A bird swooping 65 feet from one tree to another VS a bird flushing from near the base of a tree??? In the first description we have a bird that never flapped at all. A bird flushing from near the base of a tree would have to be flapping like mad.

Of the same encounter Harrison said this: I could easily see the bird's black tail, back, neck, nape, and crown. The nape came to a point and seemed to have a tonal value darker than the neck and crown.

So here we have a very good look at the back of an "Ivory-Bill." As Mr. Coin goes on to quote the Science Paper: Ivory-billed woodpeckers have a pair of longitudinal dorsal stripes that approach one another on the middle and lower back (Fig. 2), producing a white area visible on a dorsal view of a fleeing bird. Pileated woodpeckers have lateral white marks on the sides of the head and neck, but lack any trace of white on the dorsum.

Mr Harrison claims he "easily" saw the back of his bird, giving a detailed description. The dorsal stripes on the back of every Ivory-bill weren't there.

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In "The Grail Bird" (page 230), there's yet another version of the June 9 '04 sighting (the bold font is mine):

Wednesday, June 9, 2004: As Bobby paddled up the bayou south of Camp Ephilus II, a large woodpecker dropped from the trunk of a cypress tree about fifty feet up and flew toward another cypress. "I immediately did a mental checklist of field marks: large woodpecker, white trailing edges on wings, white secondaries, black back," he wrote in his field notes. "It was the ivory-bill."

Of course, this sighting didn't sit well with some of the other searchers. Bobby had had a lot of sightings, and people were starting to doubt him. I had more faith in him, though...

Will Mark Trail be skeptical?

The Mark Trail comic strip now has an Ivory-bill story line. The strip shows a guy looking at a Pileated Woodpecker, then reporting that he saw an Ivory-billed Woodpecker. This character seems quite interested in making some money by guiding people into the swamp to take pictures.

At this link, there is some information about Jack Elrod, the writer/illustrator of Mark Trail.

Big Woods comparable to the Amazon?

In the recent "60 Minutes" Ivory-bill story, we heard this:

It’s one of the most exotic and the most inhospitable environments in America, a vast primordial ooze, a place so wild, that the Big Woods have been called this country’s Amazon.

Ok, the Big Woods isn't small, but let's not get carried away. According to this link, the Amazon's total drainage basin is about 2.7 million square miles in size. The Big Woods of Arkansas is about 860 (.00086 million) square miles in size. In terms of square miles, South America's Amazon is over 3,000 times larger than "our Amazon".

A reader with experience in southern swamps emailed me this:

My wife and I have been giggling about all the accounts of how horrible, difficult, dangerous, and remote these swamps are. Again as you note, hunters and fisherman (many of the big-fat-bubba sort) go into these places all the time in large numbers.

Bobby Harrison called the Bayou DeView sighting area "a narrow strip of swamp that spanned only half a mile in its widest spots".

This year's searchers will be working mostly via "day trips" into the swamp, rather than journeying for days into the middle of nowhere. If you can paddle in, do some searching, and paddle out each day, I wouldn't describe your search area as "vast" or "inaccessible".

Another point to remember is that Cornell's "Ivory-bill" sightings were not evenly distributed throughout the Big Woods--they were tightly clustered in a four-square-kilometer area. Coincidentally, in this same small area, abnormal Pileateds were seen and photographed.

Common sense a casualty?

This text appears in an article in the Dec '04-Feb '05 North American Birds, page 206:

Tim Spahr, an Ivory-billed searcher and Harvard astrophysicist who specializes in asteroid movements and calculation of rare events, created an algorithm based both on James Tanner's description of the species in the Singer Tract and on the habitat in Bayou de View. By his calculations, a single Ivory-billed occupying that area could manage to avoid detection by 20 observers indefinitely!

To review: when the bird was last known, it was large, it flew noisily, its call sometimes carried a quarter mile, it spent time hanging on dead trees in full daylight, it repeatedly used the same roost hole, and it wasn't noticeably more wary than a Pileated. Now we're told that the same species could occupy a few square miles and avoid 20 modern observers indefinitely?! I can't help suspecting that there may be some serious flaws in that algorithm....

The authors of the article are Ken Rosenberg, Ron Rohrbaugh, and Martjan Lammertink from the Cornell search team. Their mention of this algorithm provides an interesting window into the thinking of the search team.

11/10/05 update:
Tim Spahr emailed me to say that his algorithm postulated a theoretical bird with an 800-square-mile home range, rather than a real-life bird with a home range of a few square miles. The algorithm also ignores all information from any other sources: hunters, remote cameras, ARUs, etc.

Red flags in the Ivory-bill evidence

The body of Ivory-bill evidence contains a large number of "red flags" that challenge the hypothesis "Cornell found a living Ivory-bill in Arkansas in 2004". Under the alternate hypothesis "Cornell did NOT find a living Ivory-bill in Arkansas in 2004", every one of these red flags goes away.

Below, in red, is a list of "red flag" questions. I've included possible Believer and Skeptic answers for each question.

1. Why was the Arkansas "Ivory-bill" never clearly photographed?

Believer: Although Cornell glimpsed it about 18 times, it was just too elusive to allow a clear photograph.

Skeptic: It must have been seen well repeatedly, and probably photographed, but since it was obviously a Pileated when seen well, no one realized it was "Elvis".

2. In the sight records, why were the same four of five key Ivory-bill fieldmarks repeatedly not seen?

Believer: The glimpses consistently only allowed a view of the "diagnostic" extra white on the wing.

Skeptic: Because a Pileated doesn't have the white dorsal stripes, the white neck stripe ending before the bill, the longitudinal black stripe on the white wing underside, or the pale bill itself. Note that an abnormal Pileated may well appear to show the fifth key Ivory-bill fieldmark--extra white on the wing.

3. In 18,000 hours of deployment, why did the ARUs capture kent-like call sequences only in an area where Blue Jays were observed giving kent-like call sequences?

Believer: The Arkansas Ivory-bills are almost entirely silent because the noisy birds were shot by collectors 60+ years ago. The Blue Jays (often seen in this area) probably learned the kent-like calls from the Ivory-bills (never seen in this area).

Skeptic: Because Blue Jays probably gave the kent-like call sequences recorded by the ARUs.

4. Why didn't the ARUs did not pick up distinctive double-knocks as described in "The Grail Bird"?

Believer: Maybe the Arkansas double-knock is a never-documented geographic variation of the Louisiana double-knock.

Skeptic: Because Pileateds and other woodpeckers do double-knock, but are unlikely to double-knock exactly in the BAM-bam Ivory-bill manner.

5. When the ARUs recorded "tantalizing sound evidence", why were only kents, or only double-knocks recorded, with no instances of kents in conjunction with double-knocks?

Believer: The Arkansas Ivory-bills are almost entirely silent because the noisy birds were shot by collectors 60+ years ago.

Skeptic: Because Blue Jays make kent calls but not double-knocks, and because Pileateds and other woodpeckers double-knock, but don't make kent calls.

6. Why were no "kent" vocalizations reported during any encounter?

Believer: The Arkansas Ivory-bills are almost entirely silent because the noisy birds were shot by collectors 60+ years ago.

Skeptic: Because Pileateds don't produce kent vocalizations.

7. Why didn't anyone note the loud wooden wing noise of an Ivory-bill?

Believer: ?? Maybe the Arkansas Ivory-bills fly silently because the noisy flyers were shot by collectors 60+ years ago?

Skeptic: Because Pileateds don't fly with a loud wooden wing noise.

8. Why were the sightings concentrated in such a small range, coinciding with an area where abnormal Pileateds were seen and photographed?

Believer: Maybe this "hot zone" is a travel route, although we've searched hard outside this zone with no luck.

Skeptic: Because observers probably mistook abnormal Pileateds in this area for Ivory-bills.

9. Why was the bird present in marginal IBWO habitat?

Believer: Maybe Ivory-bills have dispersed to the Cache River area because they have reached carrying capacity in the White River area.

Skeptic: Because it's good Pileated habitat.

10. Why were only single "Ivory-bills" glimpsed (they were known to travel in pairs)?

Believer: Maybe this single Ivory-bill dispersed to the Cache River area because Ivory-bills have reached carrying capacity in the White River area.

Skeptic: Because abnormal Pileateds may not travel in pairs.

11. Over many decades, why did Arkansas duck hunters/fisherman/birders never definitively see an Ivory-bill?

Believer: The non-birders would never recognize an Ivory-bill (although non-birders did repeatedly lead researchers to Ivory-bills in the past). The avid birders among these outdoorsman, and the birders doing Christmas bird counts, simply didn't encounter the existing Ivory-bills.

Skeptic: Maybe the Ivory-bill no longer exists.

12. Why was no hard evidence such as feathers, eggshells, dead bird, etc ever found?

Believer: Bad luck.

Skeptic: Maybe the Ivory-bill no longer exists.

13. Why did the remote cameras capture Pileateds, but never Ivory-bills, at bark peeling sites?

Believer: Bad luck.

Skeptic: Maybe the Ivory-bill no longer exists.

14. Why hasn't anyone snapped a confirmed photo of an Ivory-bill in the US in 60+ years?

Believer: Since we can't get a confirmed photo, the bird must be supernaturally elusive. We also haven't spent enough time searching.

Skeptic: Maybe the Ivory-bill no longer exists.

15. Why have they become so elusive and silent?

Believer: The Arkansas Ivory-bills are will-o-the-wisps because all the noisy and tame birds were shot by collectors 60+ years ago, and although they haven't been hunted since that time, they are all still stunningly wary and silent (even the fledglings).

Skeptic: Maybe the Ivory-bill no longer exists.
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For more information, please check out the Ivory-bill Skeptic home page.

Abnormal Pileated information suppressed

My brother raises some good questions in this BirdForum post:

Why didn't Cornell mention these aberrant Pileateds in their Paper? I think the answer is obvious.

Given the fact that white secondaries were the only field mark reported in the Cornell sightings, doesn't this suppressed information about aberrant Pileateds seem like a striking and troubling coincidence? Isn't it troubling that whenever there were photographs taken of large "black and white woodpeckers" with unusual (non-Pileated) markings, they always turned out to be aberrant Pileateds? Isn't it troubling that whenever remote cameras photographed woodpeckers at suspected Ivory-Bill feeding sites, they always turned out to be Pileated Woodpeckers? Isn't it troubling that all GOOD video of large black and white woodpeckers show Pileated Woodpeckers? Isn't it troubling that the top Ivory-Bill expert in the world thinks "The Video" shows a Pileated Woodpecker?

White River Ivory-bills at carrying capacity?

Here's an intriguing quote from an August New York Times article (the bold font is mine):

In a telephone interview today, Bobby Harrison of Huntsville, Ala., one of the first people to see the ivory bill in the Cache River, said he was never worried about the criticism. He added that he figured that the bird had come north to the Cache River only because there was no room in the White River refuge. "It's already got ivory bills in it," he said.