Joe Mosby on the Ivory-bill search

Joe Mosby, billed as "Arkansas' best known outdoor writer", recently wrote this article on the Ivory-bill search:

It's been drier than normal this year in eastern Arkansas. Martjan Lammertink of the Netherlands said that's an asset. Lammertink is working for Cornell on this project and is regarded as a world authority on large woodpeckers. "The water is lower, and we can get to places on foot that we could not reach last time," he said.
...
News accounts refer to the discovery of the ivory-bill in "a remote Arkansas swamp." Yet the setting is such that the hum of traffic on Interstate 40 is audible. Nevertheless, get in a canoe at an access point, paddle a few strokes into the cypress wetlands, and you are quickly "remote."

He also wrote about the Ivory-bill in this article:

...How many times lately have you heard someone ask, "Did they ever find any more of those woodpeckers?"

Yes, the top of the Arkansas outdoor news for 2005 has to be the ivory-billed woodpecker discovery, or more accurately, the announcement of its discovery.

The value of a definitive photograph

More good stuff from HASnyder on BirdForum:

A definitive photograph (just a good one, not necessarily a pretty one) removes the arguments about whether you, I or Observer X are honest or are any good at field identifications. A definitive photograph does several additional things: it shows that the bird in A) alive, B) has the field marks that must be present, and C) perhaps most importantly, it allows you to say what it is not - i.e. it allows you to eliminate all the other possible interpretations with certainty. And D) with luck it allows you to place the animal in time and space, as Warner's jaguar photos did.

Birder's World editorial

From an editorial in the February 2006 issue of Birder's World:

Here are three words that you apparently need courage to state publicly: I. Don't. Know.
Recent events have served up a pair of questions to which the words constitute a reasonable response. The first was seemingly answered in April: Does the Ivory-billed Woodpecker still exist? More than three scientists suggested that the evidence presented fell short of proof, but such sentiments never got a full airing. Emotions ran too strong too fast. Either you believed or you were a spoilsport.

...Does the woodpecker still fly? These are questions of science, not faith - that is, they are answered only with concrete, testable evidence. Until we get that, we just don't know.

Believer vs skeptic on BirdForum

I think this BirdForum post offers a pretty good example of current believer/skeptic interaction. Here, a believer makes some pretty alarming assertions:

...the standard should be no different IMHO for an out of range Northern Cardinal than for a supposedly extinct Eskimo Curlew (or supposedly extirpated Ivory-billed Woodpecker). Else, we can always be raising the standards and, those who care little for habitat, can always appeal to a higher standard.

Personally, I care very much for habitat, but it doesn't follow that I must then accept flimsy evidence as proof of living Ivory-bills.

...If that proof be scaling that can be shown to have been created by a bird with dimensions that can not be the Pileated, so be it.

...If the accepted authorities concur, as I believe they have in Arkansas, that the bird is there, why do we need more?

Of course, the accepted authorities do not concur; that popular misconception should erode significantly in the next few months.

"HASnyder" has been providing some calm, clearly expressed skepticism on BirdForum in recent days. I wonder how long the moderators will allow this to go on...

Was Jeffrey Lehman a firm believer?

The following information may be completely irrelevant, but I do find it just a bit intriguing:

1. Cornell triumphantly announces a truly astounding ornithological and environmental miracle on April 28, 2005.

2. On May 29, 2005, Cornell University President Jeffrey S. Lehman delivers this Cornell commencement address, which makes no specific mention of Cornell's astounding achievement. Lehman talks a lot about the dangers of "good people run amok":

The Dark Side I am interested in is more subtle. Think of it not as evil, but as good people run amok. Yielding to a certain kind of wholly understandable temptation, in a way that ends up being counterproductive for the individual or damaging to the larger community.
...
People afflicted with moral tunnel vision recognize a good, something that carries a positive benefit to the world. They see a path to that good. And they become so committed to pursuing that path that they lose sight of the costs to other values that might be associated with going down that path. These are the kinds of blind spots that can undermine communal life and collective progress.
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[speaking of a rush to judgment] This is the temptation to see too quickly a pattern emerging, to infer too soon an organizing principle, and then to become unable to assimilate contrary evidence into your worldview.
...
It will take hard work to remind yourself of the limits of your own knowledge, to stay receptive to new evidence, to keep an open mind, especially when you feel very real time pressures weighing on your decision.

3. On June 11, 2005, Lehman delivers this State of the University address for Cornell reunion attendees. Lehman finds time to specifically mention the school's Mock Election project and wrestling team, but again, curiously, there is not a word about Cornell's announced ornithological miracle.

Near the end of the speech, to "audible gasps", Lehman announces his resignation. According to the Ithaca Journal, "...Lehman would spend only two years in office and leave with the vague explanation that he and the Board of Trustees disagreed over how to manage the university."
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12/30/05 update: The most significant point here is that Lehman failed to utter a single word about Cornell's claimed Ivory-bill triumph in two lengthy speeches shortly after the announcement. If you have a plausible explanation that doesn't involve any skepticism by Lehman, please leave a comment.

...And a further update: When I Google "jeffrey lehman" and "cornell", I get over 13,000 hits. I can't find a single place where Lehman ever publicly said a word about the Ivory-bill story--one of the most-discussed feel-good stories in recent memory. Doesn't his silence seem just a little bit odd?

BirdLife International on the controversy

BirdLife International says this (the bold font is mine):

But the most sensational and controversial "rediscovery" was the Ivory-billed Woodpecker Campephilus principalis in North America. The rediscovery has split the ornithological community, with many convinced that photographic, video and audio evidence confirms the survival of the species in Arkansas, while others insist the blurry pictures and recordings of "kent" calls and double-knocks are open to other interpretations, implicating leucistic Pileated Woodpeckers, Blue Jays, snapping twigs and distant gunshots. Survey teams are currently scouring the area.

Could it be possible that Ivory-bill skepticism actually extends far beyond the "lunatic fringe"?

My answer is a resounding "yes"--I know for a fact that there are lots of highly-qualified skeptics out there; I know many of their names, and I'm confident that they won't remain publicly silent forever.

New Ivory-bill article from Don Hendershot

Is there a "blurry" gene?

Read the article here.

Deliberate deception?

On page 10 of his book "Voodoo Science", Robert Park writes:

What may begin as honest error, however, has a way of evolving through almost imperceptible steps from self-delusion to fraud. The line between foolishness and fraud is thin.

In an earlier post, I wrote about Ken Rosenberg's appearance on NPR's Science Friday show. When I listen to Rosenberg's treatment of the ARU kent call data, I can't help but think about Park's writing above.

As I wrote previously, Rosenberg played some ARU kent calls, failing to mention that several searchers reported hearing and seeing blue jays making sounds very much like this in this area. Afterwards, he said "...we, um, believe they may very likely be an Ivory-billed Woodpecker".

In my opinion, Rosenberg's failure to even mention the critical blue jay information seems like a deliberate attempt to deceive the NPR listeners.

Maybe I'm wrong. If you think it's OK to sell the kent calls to the public in this manner, please leave a comment or drop me an email.

Bobby Harrison's Ivory-bill book

Bobby Harrison evidently wrote a children's book about the Ivory-bill, just in time for Christmas. Here's an ad (PDF format) for the book.

It costs $15 and according to the ad, "$5. from each book is donated to Bobby’s continued search & research".

The book is billed as "the best gift you can give a child." (If that particular claim is true, I think the book is significantly underpriced.)

The designers or proofreaders of this ad evidently didn't have great eyes for detail--note that the book is described as "A beautifully illustrated Childrens's Book!"

Apparent white trailing edges glimpsed!

This article on the Cornell web site contains a telling anecdote (the bold font is mine):

...Then, LOOK –- LOOK! Flying across the levy right in front was a large woodpecker. The sun was at our back so this could be the right time and the right place –- a large flash of white moved the blood-pressure up a notch –- then the bird morphed into the very common pileated. The shiny black feathers had reflected in the sun, and just for moment, there appeared to be white on the trailing edge of the wings. A slight change in the viewing angle and it was clear the white was not what it had seemed.

Remember, in the spring of '04, searchers had the idea that Ivory-bills had been confirmed in the area. Ron Rohrbaugh said:

It was an absolutely electric time. To think that around every bend, behind every big cypress, there could be an ivory-bill.

To review: In the spring of '04, you had searchers that really wanted to see an Ivory-bill; furthermore, they believed Ivory-bills had already been confirmed in the immediate area; and they were willing to place great emphasis on just one fieldmark (a glimpse of apparent trailing white wing edges).

When you then add in the presence of abnormal Pileateds in the area, you've got a perfect recipe for many incorrect "Ivory-bill" sight records.