Coincidentally, there's also a Bill from Hohenwald, TN who is evidently a strong believer, and over on BirdForum, that Bill thinks we have plenty to talk about right now; he's currently churning out more posts per day than I am. That Bill is emphatically advancing some groundbreaking new "believer" points, as in this posting about "jizz":
Jizz is the secret ingredient (or maybe the 800 pound gorilla in the room) in Ivorybill sightings...And this is why I am convinced by the Bayou de View sightings and video. When I finally got that video to download and play on my computer I practically jumped up and started dancing and hollering "YEE HAW!!! No $@$%#@ way that bird is a %#%^$ Pileated!!!!!" It's all in the jizz, and that jizz is NO Pileated, not even remotely. If that is a pileated then my chickens are tinamous. You can holler yourself horse about upperwings and underwings and leading edges and trailing edges and halo effects if you like, bury your head looking for the Field Marks (tm), meanwhile missing the sledgehammer of jizz trying to get your attention by pounding on your head with sirens wailing and big flashing neon letters declaring "IVORYBILL IVORYBILL IVORIBILL!!!!!!!"Questions for either one of the Bills:
1. If the Luneau bird's jizz eliminates Pileated for you so obviously and completely, then why didn't it have the same effect on folks like David Luneau, Martjan Lammertink, David Sibley, Jerome Jackson, Richard Prum, Mark Robbins, and Michael Patten?
2. Aren't "jizz-based" identifications more properly restricted to those cases where observers have considerable field experience with both species that you are trying to separate, or for cases where known species are present for direct comparison of size, shape, flight style, etc?
If an observer has never personally seen a presumed extinct bird, and further has never even seen a video of that bird in flight, doesn't that put a significant crimp in that person's ability to reliably identify that bird in flight via jizz?
3. If we had some modern photos like this, would you still be arguing the relative value of jizz over fieldmarks?
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16 comments:
Hmmm, how many people are still learning new things about the Pileated after years of many looks at this bird? I think the PW is still capable of surprising even those of us who've spent many years in the field. I saw a family of 4 fly across the trail in front of me this past summer. Flying silently like owls slipping through my northern Forest. Yes the IBW has different 'jizz' than a PW but we don't exactly know a PW as well as a Robin or a Titmouse, do we?.
I mean at times I would describe a Pileated as cartoonish, especially when it strays from its shy behavior to sneak a few peeks at us from behind a tree. Groupthink can influence faulty observations.
Yet as a skeptical-believer, I can't believe all these people were duped
by an aberrant pileated. Or can I?
Paul - New Paltz, NY.
Oops I missed point three...
No if we had a modern photo like that we would ALL be uncorking champagne bottles and celebrating like lunatics!
Jizz birding is most important in three circumstances:
(A) Making quick identifications of common birds in large numbers, which we do all the time, such as on a CBC when we guage how many of those brown jobbies that just flew from that bramble where whitethroats and how many were song sparrows.
(B) Quickly picking out the "something different" from a large collection of common birds. "Take a better look at that one it looks like something odd." This often characterizes the birders who find rarities with seeming ease.
(C) Circumstances where a bird is seen under less than optimal conditions. This includes species that are almost never seen under anything but sub-optimal conditions (like seabirds on the open ocean) as well as sightings of any rarity that are not of perched birds in the open with perfect photographs. It is worth noting that the documentary photographs published in each edition of "North American Birds" are heavily dominated by beaches, swimmers, feeder birds, etc. Good shots of woodland creatures are obtained, but they are much more difficult.
Bill
p.s. for Paul -- actually on my property here I see many more pileateds than robins
A replacement for the absent first post...
The other forum serves a different purpose than this one. It is for talking about other sightings, more recent sightings, search possibilities, strategies, results, news, rumors, and ideas about habitat, distribution, ID, and the like. It might be worth noting that I have expressed my opinion that two of the "sightings" much discussed on that forum are bunk, and have maintained a positon no stronger than "intriguing" about Bill Smith's Florida stories and his little photograph. I think I am with most other readers there in waiting to see if he gets the real shot he is in quest of. Some of the participants there are active searchers and friends of active searchers working in areas other than the Big Woods. Hence, it is appropriate to discuss unsubstantiated rumors and speculative theories that might warrant follow-through.
So, one might ask, why DID I bring up the Luneau video and Cornell sightings?
My posting was a discussion about a component I consider critical in evaluating any Ivorybill report. Essentially, Pileateds and Ivorybills are not in fact very closely related, their similarities are superficial, and, as such, in life they should exhibit substantially different "jizz." For more details on "jizz" see my original post kindly linked to in Tom's original posting. So my point was that the presence or absence of a marked non-Pileated "jizz" is a crucial component of a purported Ivorybill sighting or video, and needs to be weighed along with the presence or absence of traditional field marks. AS AN EXAMPLE I noted that I found the Cornell sightings and Luneau video to display a non-Pileated "jizz" that is consistent with historical descriptions of definite Ivorybills, and that this was the deciding factor convincing me of their validity.
The point was actually forward-looking, for evaluating new evidence as it arises and to know what to look for and take note of if you do happen to encounter a possible ivorybill, especially under less-than-perfect viewing conditions. As I said, if you think the bird might have been a Pileated, it probably was. Implicit in this is: regardless of how much white you thought you saw when it flew off through the woods. A real Ivorybill should stand out as clearly and fundamentally different from a pileated (they are not even in the same Genus) even before you have chance to note white-black patterns or bill color or whatever.
I am a little surprised to be taken to task here for advancing ideas that will actually rule out far more potential Ivorybill reports than they will support. Some widely discussed sightings, including some of Cornell's robust sightings and Mary Scott's 2003 White River bird, are jizz-deficient and if they stood alone might be rather unconvincing because of this. Other common casual reports like "I thought it was a pileated until it flew and I saw all that white," or, "There's two kinds of big pointy-headed woodpckers in that swamp, the ones that are mostly black, and the ones that have a bunch of white on them" are severely jizz-challenged and hence low on my credibility list. Bill Smith's account of "Dinosaur birds" is more intriguing because the locals who told him of it considered the "dinosaur birds" to be completely different from pileateds. Are they really ivorybills? Are they even woodpeckers? Let's hope he gets a real picture of one to settle it. These tales are available from links posted in the same forum as my "Jizz" posting.
As to why others disgree with my assessment of the video, well folks disagree on just about everything in that video. Many others DO see a bird-that-could-not-possibly-be-a-pileated in that video. Another blogger (birdchick, maybe) said that when she saw the video at full speed, uncropped on a big screen, she'd have believed a leucistic wood duck before a pileated, other than that it was hanging on the trunk of a tree before it flushed. Others, including myself, have similar assessments. Tom disagrees, we have covered this before. Jerome Jackson, sometimes I wonder how he and I could have heard the same recordings and watched the same videos. But there it is.
I have heard repeatedly of Kaufman and Sibley's skepticism, but I have never seen anywhere their assessment of the evidence spelled out first-hand by them. Is this available somewhere? I'd be especially interested in Kaufman's as he is a great jizz man and tries to teach gestalt birding in his writings. There is a large difference between "The video shows a pileated" and "The video is poor-quality and inconclusive."
Bill
Hi Bill,
As far as I know, we haven't heard publicly from Sibley or Kaufman since this July New York Times article .
At some point, maybe one or both of them will again speak publicly...
Tom
I heard it suggested they are remaining quiet so as to not alienate their readership, one way or the other.
"Jizz" is not proof.
"Gestalt" is not proof.
ARU tape is not proof.
Pixilated (sp?) videotape is not proof.
"Proof" is a live bird or dead carcass, or some piece of tissue/fluid that can be confirmed to have come from a suspect bird, and that can be DNA tested to match IBWO museum skins.
Otherwise, we have to go with focused, unretouched photographs from different angles & that require as little enlargement as possible, + field observation that meets Sibley's Rule of Thumb for documentation.
There are state bird records committees which will deep-six reports based on the comparable documentation, even when it involves extant species that could conceivably have been where they were allegedly seen.
In the absence of physical evidence one takes all the non-physical evidence and weights the totality of it. The Arkansas State Rare Bird Committee did this and accepted the bayou de View sightings, a fact I notice as hardly been mentioned here at all even though the ABA's decision to not re-list the IBWO as extant has been mentioned frequently. Selective reporting?
The IBWO is not bigfoot. The species is unequivocally known to have existed in the lower Mississippi Allivual Plain as recently as the mid-20th Century. It is just a bird, an plain old North American species that was believed (not unanimously) to probably be extinct. If it were a sparrow or field mouse or something else that was not part of the romanticised charismatic megafauna there would be very little controversy or dispute going on, nor would people be appying a standard of evidence higher than what is required to convict a person for life in prison on a murder charge.
"The Arkansas State Rare Bird Committee did this and accepted the bayou de View sightings".
No, they didn't. They accepted only the video, and it's pretty clear to me (and many others) that they're wrong. As far as I know, the flimsy sight records have never even been submitted to any Rare Bird Committee.
"...nor would people be appying a standard of evidence higher than what is required to convict a person for life in prison on a murder charge."
I strongly disagree here; I think Cornell's body of evidence is so weak that its equivalent might not pass muster if used to claim a Raven (somewhat out of range) sighting at the St Paul Christmas Bird Count.
Re: the video, it is equally clear to many others that you are wrong. Around and around and around it goes.
It still remains that selective quoting of experts is standard practice here. The Arkansas committee accepts the record, they are WRONG. The ABA continues listing as extinct, they are RIGHT. Jackson says Arkansas contains no suitable habitat, he is RIGHT. Jackson says he saw an Ivorybill, he is WRONG. Anyone can find experts to cite in support of any opinion. There are plenty of experts out there who will testify in favor of alien abductions or against evolution. Within mainstream science the community is rarely unanimous about anything new until a couple of academic generations have passed and had time to reflect and evaluate. In this case, it is quite clear that the prevailing but not unanimous opinion of the scientific community is in favor of the existence of this bird, and actions are being taken in accord with this prevailing opinion. There is nothing wrong or unusual about this.
Bill Pulliam, who said he was going to stay out of this but sometimes it is hard to keep quiet.
Bill,
Hey, I'm "calling 'em as I see 'em" here. Since I DO think the Arkansas Rare Bird Committee was wrong, and I DO think the ABA was right, that's what I'm going to say.
If you want to argue otherwise (in a civil manner, please), please do so, but please don't expect ME to argue otherwise.
"...it is quite clear that the prevailing but not unanimous opinion of the scientific community is in favor of the existence of this bird."
I have to disagree with you there. In the next year, I predict that the public will hear more and more skepticism from the scientific community.
Tom
Hey Bill, stick around. Although I'm a skeptic and disagree with some of your conclusions, you are articulate and make a lot of good points.
We WANT an open debate here, unlike Birdforum, who banned outspoken "heretics."
Keep this blog going. It serves a very useful purpose.
Ok, the Arkansas RBC accepted the video. Among several alternative decisions they could have made instead, most revolve around "not" accepting it. How objective was the committee on this video? Would the AR RBC have been willing to reject it, effectively bucking the Cornell "party line"? Was it too easy to fall into "groupthink" mentality ("hey, if CORNELL UNIVERSITY believes it, then it must be true!")? Who wanted to be labeled an Arkansas "rube" for thumbing their nose at the Iv(or)y League? In rejecting the video, would RBC committee members have been willing to accept the tarring and brushing and other ad hominem attacks suffered by anyone else who has tried to rebut the assertion that IBWOs still exist?
Curious why this forum regularly uses the term "ad hominem attacks" when the term "personal attacks" would mean essentially the same thing without sending readers to the dictionary?
Second guessing the motives of the Arkansas records committee is possibly below the belt, as well. State records committees routinely reject well-publicized sightings, and sightings submitted by big name birders, on the basis of insufficient evidence. This is not a personal thing. I have had records rejected because of questions concerning the wild vs. escaped origin of the bird. I disagreed with their conclusion, as the species in question was rare in captivity and fit an established vagrancy pattern (I had a good photograph), but I hardly took it personally. Suggesting that the Arkansas record committee members were intimidated by Cornell, implicating that they somehow feel inferior and are bowing to a superior intelligence, is inappropriate. And if you think that such committees are not well-prepared to deal with the unpleasant reactions of rejecting a popular record, you should talk to some who have sat on them.
I have also not seen or heard of any particular "backlash" against the ABA checklist committee's decision to keep the IBWO listed as "extinct." Grumbling and disagreement, certainly, but not personal assaults.
Curious why this forum regularly uses the term "ad hominem attacks" when the term "personal attacks" would mean essentially the same thing without sending readers to the dictionary?
There's a reason some people, including myself, have used that term. An ad hominem attack is a logical fallacy; a personal attack is "being mean".
The pressure on the Arkansas records committee was obviously much higher since it was Cornell that submitted the video and it was the centerpiece of the evidence proving the ornithological miracle of the century. The degree to which these facts affected the committee is unknown to anyone not on the committee.
And yes, I could have said bird instead of ornithological. ; )
"The pressure on the Arkansas records committee was obviously much higher since it was Cornell that submitted the video and it was the centerpiece of the evidence proving the ornithological miracle of the century."
Actually, David Luneau submitted the video, not Cornell.
Actually, David Luneau submitted the video, not Cornell.
Actually, the FedEx guy probably handed it to the committee.
Both interesting but somewhat irrelevant points in my opinion.
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