At this link, Bill of the Birds describes a recent encounter with Pale-Billed Woodpeckers--cousins to the Ivory-bill.
Note that he describes "leisurely looks" at the birds over a 15-minute period; note that he doesn't mention wearing a ghillie suit and face paint; and note that he doesn't mention having to find their roost hole.
He didn't find the birds immediately, and not all of his pictures are good ones. However, he did find the birds, and he did get good pictures, even with leaves on the trees.
If you Google for images of Pale-billed Woodpeckers, you'll find plenty of other decent pictures of that species.
If the Ivory-bill had survived in the US in recent decades, it's virtually certain that we would have hundreds or thousands of recent, high-quality Ivory-bill photos.
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2 comments:
I'm going to save the True Beliver some time so he can work on his next haiku for all of us so called "skeptics" and offer some rationale for this disturbing news that Campephilus woodpeckers behave like woodpeckers and not pootoos, rails and submerged grebes
There is a good reason why Bill Thompson was able to get close to a pale billed with no Ghillie Suit.
The reason is that he was in Tikal - which is like a major tourist attraction. Sure Brinkely wishes that it had a "tikal" to prop up its ailing economy - instead of a woodpecker that takes 1025hrs of searching to have a "high quality" encounter with.
However the Pale Billeds are used to seeing tourists that look like Bill and Julie ... in Arkansas however the birds are wary and there aren't any tourists. Therefore you need a Ghillie Suit.
I've allready ordered mine on the outside chance that the TB is right about may 10.
Los Carpinterio Real
This "True Believer" cracks me up. As I see it, you were once a Skeptic on this blog.
Now this is what I want to know. If on May 10 (or before) Fitz doesn't annouce that he has found 10 pair of Ivory-billeds, are you then going to come back as a Skeptic? Where you rightfully belong.
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