Big News: As of May 20th, I can publicly talk about my experiences on the Ivory-bill Search Team with Cornell and if anyone on my team did or did not see an ivory-bill last December. Cornell will also be announcing their findings on that date. Should be a hoppin' time on bird listservs and blogs.
Thursday, May 11, 2006
Nine more days
Birdchick writes:
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38 comments:
I heard that volunteers could tell people if they hadn't seen the Ivory-bill. But that Cornell was restricting volunteers from saying if they had seen it, or telling of experiences of others on their team.
So I'd guess that Bird Chick, aka Guille Girl, thinks she saw an Ivory-bill. Oh boy!
anonanon
Can't wait to see all those photos, videos and indisputable sound recordings!
I'm sure they won't use words like "kent-like" and "double-knocky" and that they won't call anything "high-quality". The word "possible" won't even appear in the report.
It'll all be just as it should be....clear photos of the largest woodpecker in North America, repeated sightings by multiple observers etc. It'll be Great Everybody!
Prediction:
Visits to her blog explode. Thousands of 'awwwws' go up in reaction to her very cute bunny pictures.
Precious.
It is true that Sharon wore a Ghillie suit - but lets not ridicule her BEFORE she speaks.
It was bad enough what Jack Hitt did to Bobby with his photo of him floating in full camo - camera at the ready, in the NYT and his mention of Sharon in the paper of record means that we need to wait paitiently till the Cornell NDA sunsets and she can speak and show us her pictures.
As the carpinterio has said many many times, this is a sober conversation about the evidence.
However the carpinterio has noted that the official bigfoot community has inducted IBWO into its hall of fame at this site "Cryptomundo" which includes info on everything from the abominable snowman to yeti (including the Carpinterio's favorite, the Chupacabra)
Congradulations Fitz et. al. you will be getting a call from Leonard Nimoy
From the NYT article, Bird Chick impies she saw an IBWO.
Let's not ridicule until after May 20th, as scientists we have no preconceived bias or agendas.
Carpinterio,
She's so damn cute and perky. I can't help myself.
But you're right I'll wait till AFTER she speaks to ridicule her. But I promise, if she saw the head, bill, or back instead of just the wing, I will sing her praises throughout the Internet.
On May 20, I predict that this dude's
Area 51 story will be revealed as Truth.
In my mind, there is no doubt that in Birdchick's mind she did see an IBWO.
Can we at least agree on that?
I certainly hope BIRDCHICK saw an IBWO but can't quite figure out why she has the following on her site:
"To show the world that you can be a birder without being a geek."
Does she think that by making it clear she does not see herself as a geek, while perpetuating the myth that most birders are "geeks", she will sell more optics to the "geeks"?
But her enthusiasm and occupation could lead to an entire new line of optics - Rose- colored binoculars
Your future can be rosy with our new
Rose –Colored Optics. No need to worry about your flagging optimism when you aren’t seeing the species you have been pursuing. Just try our new Rose-Colored binoculars and scopes. Endorsed by the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology. Please order the “extra tinted” version if you are hoping to see species that have been extinct for >25 years.
You know that I love you Skeptics. I really do. Therefore, can I just ask that you stop and think for a minute? You are making a humongous mistake. This isn’t the real world. This is the once in a century world of great discoveries. You need to think outside the (Schrodinger cat) box.
In nine days, the eminent Dr. Fitzpatrick will announce 7 pairs of IBWO in the big woods of Arkansas. That is not just my bold prediction. It’s just logic. You are asking us to believe that the good Doctor would set up the grandest suspenseful 6 months of the last 1000 years just to announce… what? That they have more double-knocky things for us to listen to? I don’t think so! In the real world, PHD’s do not so readily set themselves up for ridicule, mockery, scorn, derision, laughter, and spite.
Don’t you see? You have entered into a giant trap. Why do you think the eminent Dr. Fitzpatrick has placed a gag order on all reports. Have you ever hunted skunks? Believe me… you don’t go charging in for the kill. You just get stinky that way. No, you lure them in and then bam…right between the eyes. That’s what’s happening here. Skeptics are being hunted like skunks. And Dr. Fitzpatrick doesn’t want the stink of the kill all over him.
To save yourselves, may I humbly suggest the following?
1. Repent. It’s not too late.
2. Donate to the cause. Come on. What can it hurt?
3. Support searchers’ blogs with kindly comments and helpful suggestions.
4. And finally, send your kid to an IVY. It’s the only way to save the world.
Signed,
The True Believer
I'd like to complain.
As a geek, I see no reason why geeks must be ridiculed in this forum or on any other forum. Geeks have a rich tradition of protecting pockets, and becoming filthy rich and marrying above our station. Why without geeks we would have Apple but no PC. We would have IPods but no BIRDPOD. We'd have "BirdChick Blog" but not "Ivory-bill Skeptic"
And the ultimate in Geekdom. The google hits comparison
Geeks 63,600,000
Nerds 30,100,000
birdchick birder 62,200
"Tom Nelson" skeptic 9,470
(sorry Tom)
When chickens finally come home to roost you’ll see
That among them will be one called W M D
But the last of them you shall surely know
By the name of I B W O
They ALL believe they saw an IBWO, does that make it real? On my god, what is reality!
Could TB be right, on May 20th, real pictures and real nests and real roost sites and real chicks.
Don't hold your breath.
Hey, it's National Endangered Species day!!! May 11th
http://www.fws.gov
It won't be the last time I wasn't right when I didn't know it wasn't true.
The TB
Got the feeling that everybody's hopes and expectations are rising with the May 20th announcement forthcoming.
Either that you're all in love with Birdchick.
Give her a call.
Just checked BIRDCHICK's profile and see that she is was born in the Year of the Tiger with Cancer as her astrological sign. This has important implications for anything she might have seen this spring since Mercury is ascendant and the Moon is in opposition to Mars - increasing the chances of self-delusion for someone with her chart.
Now I am wondering if the 17 authors of the "rediscovery" paper are predominantly Taurus – which would explain a lot.
Methinks I am way more in love with TB than Birdchick, but thats just me.
Really, is there any, any, explaination for wearing a Ghillie Suit when you are trying to spot a woodpecker in a swamp in Arkansas.
Can someone please trace the evolution of this camo thing for me?
How in the word did we get to Ghillie Suit ?
Did Sharon buy her own? Borrow one or expense it to the search ...
The image of Marshall Field or Roger Sant buying a Ghillie Suit for a woman named "Birdchick" inspires me to think that we might tackle global warming afterall?
Volunteers had to provide their own camoflage. And you can bet that the real birders (at least in my group) thought it was the most ridiculous idea put forth by Cornell.
We've seen thousands of birds, even skitttish ones wearing normal everyday clothes.
For me, I bought the cheapest damn camo bug jacket/pants combo I could find. I didn't paint my face, or mask my scent. But then again *I* didn't see an IBWO.
I believe Cornell took the advice of Bobby Harrison.
(Even though Gene saw his bird from a blue kayak with no camo)
Yes, Bobby recommended stupid como and now he's bad mouthing Fitz's scientific method of transcects in the NYT. And saying that they are scaring away all the birds.
Meanwhile, Hitt quotes Fitz as saying he probably won't be back with as much effort next fall. Sorry TB, but I can't believe they are reducing the effort now that they have found 7 pairs??!!
It's all falling apart. But that's hardly news to Skeptics. The question is where's the retraction of the paper? Does Van Remsen still stand by his name on the paper? Does LSU still believe?
"I believe Cornell took the advice of Bobby Harrison."
Let me get this straight. Cornell will listen to Bobby Harrison, Mary Scott, and Casey Taylor, but they won't listen to David Sibley, Kenn Kaufman, or Jerome Jackson?!
I'm fascinated by the idea that we are in some kind of spy vs. spy with the cornell spin people.
then I realize that there is no way that they are getting the kind of talent that could draw all us skeptics out into the zocalo and have us all feeling uppity and even "accepted" among the conservation community, only to peel back the tarps covering the gattling guns and mow us all down in cold blood with bandoliers of clear photos and an on line nest box cam and a whole box full of eggs that have been lifted to create a captive flock ...
This would of course be brilliant on the part of Fitzpatrick et al ... he would reign supreme for all time.
Fitzpatrick presents us with two images at this point and from my analysis you can see that he could pass for either historical figures in his many poses (back when he was doing the pr front act for the woodpecker ... (of course now he stays close to "doc allen's" chair in Ithaca.
In this image he is either Custer
or
In this image he is wading ashore just like
General McAurthur.
Which one is the real Fitz ... will the real Fitz please stand up?
Dear Birdchick:
What if I want my kids to see IBWO and I am worried that Fitzpatrick isn't kidding when he says "this might be a lone bird wandering at the end of its life"?
Sincerely,
Worried Skeptic Father
Dear Daddy Skeptic:
I have rabbits so there is no way that any kids are in my future, but I can tell you that there is only one sure way to get your child in the search:
get them their own onesy Ghillie Suit!.
Good luck, lets talk on the 20th when the NDA sunsets.
regards,
Birdchick
"I believe Cornell took the advice of Bobby Harrison."
Let me get this straight. Cornell will listen to Bobby Harrison, Mary Scott, and Casey Taylor, but they won't listen to David Sibley, Kenn Kaufman, or Jerome Jackson?!
Yes. Does that seem silly for some reason??
But to quote an outspoken Birdforum participant, your post was pernicious and intellectually dishonest, and I must question your motives.
My Friends,
I continue my mission at BirdForum, and rejoice as soon as I smell the verdant hills of Tom's blog. Methinks the Forumers are excited and that Jackson is a poo-poo, and Sibley and Kaufman are WAY overrated. They have no poetry.
Maybe something like:
Kens and Daves, barmy knaves
Jeromes are yuchy too
But birdchicks rule
Mike Scotts are cool
Too bad the ivory-bill up and flew
BTW, Fitzcrow's response to Jackson is out in Auk, but I can't find it online. Can anyone send a link? I hear his "withering" criticism is shallow and lame, and that he says stuff like the (I paraphrase here) "we continue to reject the hypothesis that the bird in the Luneau video is a normal Pileated Woodpecker". There is also an assertion that Harrison and Gallagher independently identified the bird, then I guess they jumped up in unison to shout....
well, you know the rest.
Methinks the illusion to Allen spinning in his grave was apt.
Well, Carpinterio, maybe Fitz is neither. Both Custer and McAurthur were competent leaders.
Ok, Custer had a few problems there toward the end. But still...and maybe he and his men might have benefited from a few Ghillie Suits....but still they were both pretty good generals.
Fitz just wasn't up to this challenge. One man's arrogance is another man's confidence, but was it not arrogant to have passed by Jackson, Sibley, et al in the beginning?
Was it just arrogance to want all the glory for self and CLO? An intelligent man knows when to be humble.
The Carpinterio leaps to Fitzcrow's defense.
The man is a born leader.
Every Word is his command.
From the prairies of MN, to the windy city, the sand scrub of ancient FLA to the rocky shores of Christmas Cove, the gorges of Ithaca - the man is a born leader - he may be more a Custer figure than a McArthur figure though.
There is no way to explain away his current predicament as a lack of leadership.
Fitz et al is Fitz et al for a reason.
Oh, I see. I thought you meant "leader" as a good thing. You mean "leader" as one who can start others down a path.
So Fitz is sort of a George Bush leader of the bird world? I get it.
So this thing will end in disaster, but his high school teacher can still say, "Fitz was a born leader." That kind of thing? I get it.
Yes, I agree then. Fitz is a born leader.
Dear Bird Forum Mission Spy;
Don't spend too much time over there or you might become a fascist/communistic thinker; brainwashed by their youthful energy and lack of life experience.
The Carpinterio refuses to defame the lead author of the boldly titled: Ivory-billed Woodpecker (Campephilus principalis) Persists in Continental North America (ie Fitz et al) for reasons beyond the narrow scope of the evidence at hand.
As as side note, how do we explain the order in which the 17 authors appear?
I suggest that it is "status" within the group - Fitzcrow being the one posessing the most elevated status - the leader.
Let us also turn our attention to the actual building in which Fitz sits. That building was not there when he arrived in the fingerlakes.
It was a dowdy one story affair with a little gift shop and some Fuertes paintings on the walls - now it is a palacial space designed in the shape of the CLO logo and (clearly visible when viewed from above).
The mark of a leader is not being able to get "people" to follow you - it is the ability to get MONEY to follow you. In a non profit the first thing a leader does is conduct a capital campaign.
and here is the proof
Although Ithaca is full of old buildings that could have been recycled - Fitz has a view of the pond - in a ecologically sensitive building - in a beautiful woods.
This is the mark of success in the conservation world. Just as it is in the evangelical community
Carpinterio,
I couldn't have said it better myself.
You also worship the eminent Dr. Fitzpatrick.! Thank you.
Signed,
The TB
This is true....
last year when Fitzcrow received an award from the Linnaean Society in NYC he began by showing a slide of the new Lab and saying (again, I must paraphrase, old age and all)
"This is my church, and I go there to worship every day."
Sniff....
TB
"This is my church, and I go there to worship every day."
I'm confused. The new Lab building is his church?
According to this link , the Big Woods of Arkansas is supposed to be Fitz' church.
No, the Arkansas church is his "Church of Latter Day (Extinct) Birds"
His CLO church is just his "Church of Extant Day Birds"
Oh, good sleuthing again Tom. Yes, he said that the CLO building was his church, and yes he said the same bloody thing about the big woods in that article. Methinks that they are branches of the same church.
Lemme send you to
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14935/newsDate/8-Mar-2002/story.htm
for a March 8, 2002 story that has some of favorite players in it.
It is a very interesting read.
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