A couple of excerpts (the bold font is mine):
[Deputy Secretary of the Interior, Lynn] Scarlett said, “I’d like to thank the Cornell Lab of Ornithology for their great science work that has made the research possible here and that has helped us to confirm the sighting of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker.”
...
“This morning we had a chance to paddle in some of those bayous and among those trees, and even without the bird, it is a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful experience.
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7 comments:
Yes it is easy to mock a bureaucrat from Bush’s Interior Department, but for all you Skeptics I have two words, Tim Gallagher. He is the chink in your Skeptic armor. Mr. Gallagher is an expert who saw the IBWO with his own eyes in that swamp that Ms Scarlett paddled. Mr. Gallagher works for and is paid by Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology, the premier bird source and bird science lab in the country if not the world. It doesn’t get much more expert than that.
Now before you jump down my throat, I realize that Mr. Gallagher didn’t actually look at the head of the IBWO. As he says, he concentrated on the important parts, the white in the wings of the flying bird. But I say that is sufficient.
Look at it this way, you are walking down a street in Memphis and you round the corner and there in front of you for a few seconds is a fellow in a white sequined jumpsuit with matching cape running down the street ahead of you. What do you say? Elvis, of course!
Or….. someone who is impersonating Elvis. Now this is my point. Birds don’t impersonate each other. A Pileated didn’t dress up for the day as an IBWO just to fool Cornell. In the bird world, if you see Elvis, it is Elvis!!!
Yes, Skeptics….. I give you Tim Gallagher, an expert who saw the white cape.
Signed,
The True Believer
Gallagher is also presumably being paid by the publishers of his book. Doesn't mean that we're going to consider him a literary giant though does it? However, it does mean that he has a financial interest in his claim being believed.
I waver on this one . . .
as a long-time birder, I have personally seen good, competent birders turn an ordinary bird into a scarce one . . . especially if the rare bird was there yesterday and the observer is there today . . . wishful thinking turns easily into wishful vision . . . to witness this phenomenon in others while standing next to them is phantasmagorical in itself . . .
on the other hand, I know what its like to have seen a scare bird and suffer the scorn of the birding community . . . it seems like those who missed the bird are driven to take the sighting away from the one who saw it . . . a kind of "If I can't have it then nobody can" mentality . . .
it seems that some birders just can't believe that a bird could fly out of the colored ranges illustrated in their favorite bird book . . . they act like NORAD is patrolling the skies with Peterson's Field Guide in the cockpit . . . they give the straying bird a warning and if it fails to turn around, they shoot it down . . .
yet I have personally seen birds that were thousands of miles out of range, deep into the Peterson "white" states . . .
the doubters are in a precarious position, especially in one critical point: THEY WERE NOT THERE! . . . think about this . . . YOU NOW HAVE PEOPLE WHO NOT THERE TELLING PEOPLE WHO WERE THERE WHAT THEY SAW . . . that makes me scratch my head, too . . . another phantasmagorical experience . . . aren't all these skeptics lacking the key evidence? . . . seems that humility in there conclusions is more in order than bravado . . .
the ivory-bill apparently lives in an large uninhabitable area . . . the numbers of eyes on there territory can be but a mere fraction compared to the number of eyes on birdfeeders . . . it doesn't seem entirely improbable that a wide roaming bird in a remote and inhospitable habitat where the number of eyes per square mile is minuscule could go undetected for decades . . .
I've heard of people being sentenced to prison and death on less evidence than Cornell has accumulated . . . what prosecutor thinks he could not win a murder conviction when he could parade 20 witnesses to the stand, each testifying they saw the accused first hand? . . . what defender wants to convince the jury that all 20 eye-witnesses are mistaken? . . .
I think I'll just wait this one out . . .
Give me a break. Gallagher is an author and editor, not an ornithologist. Just because he writes about birds, doesn't mean he's an expert in bird identification. Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Gallagher
The man is an English major. He writes and edits. Doesn't make him an "authority" on bird identification or even on the Ivory-billed Woodpeckers he's writing about.
Are we really going to believe that the IBWO is still out there on the authority of an English major? Since we can't rely on his academic training to consider him an authority, any one here birded with Gallagher? Any evidence that he's a credible observer?
In all the years he's lived and worked in New York, has he ever submitted a rare bird record to the state records committe. As far as I can tell, from looking at the list of all reports submitted to the commmitte (http://www.nybirds.org/NYSARC/RecordsSummary.htm),
the man has never ever put his observation skills of a rare bird up for review.
That doesn't mean he didn't see what he said he saw, but it also doesn't provide any evidence that he's a good observer of rare birds.
That shouldn't be held against him. If you saw Elvis, you would publish too, wouldn't you? And the proceeds of such a book has to go somewhere.
Every once in a while a new Galileo, Newton, Einstein, or Fitzpatrick comes to the fore. Since Gallagher is the first real expert to have seen an IBWO, I would think he qualifies to be in that group.
Afterall, no one can dispute the importance of the rediscovery of IBWO. It ranks up there with the greatest story ever told.
Signed,
The True Believer
True Believer, you're great. Let me know when your standup act comes to Philly! Laugh a minute...what a card! But maybe you're confusing the Cornell Gallagher with the comedian (http://www.gallaghersmash.com/). Such subtle irony. Gallagher as expert--what a hoot!
I will forgive Cornell everything (the secrecy, the hubris, the defensive vs. inquisitive nature of their work) if they will hire Jon Lovitz to handle their next announcement in a reprise of his SNL "The Liar" routine. If I could see him saying:
"We are happy to report that we saw one .uh.. no two.. yeah, that's the ticket! We saw TWO Ivory-billed Woodpeckers and they were making a nest cavity....no, they were incubating eggs..no, they were feeding young. Yeah, that's it! They were feeding young, etc."
If they want to make a mockery out of the entire process at least entertain us while they are doing it.
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