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The Carpinterio hadn't seen this piece by Juile Zickeefoose before it isn't dated, but it got him thinking about the mind of the beliver.
Sometimes after a long day in the burning arroyo choked with salt cedars the Carpinterio gets so thirsty he can taste his cerveza. He can imagine the coolness of the bottle or the tickle of the burbujas against the roof of his mouth. Sometimes he can see the light coming through the clear amber of the glass ... it is all so vivid and real.
He can only imagine that this is the same kind of longing that seeing the lord god bird inspires in some. The longing is so intense, so real that the experience becomes as real as reality.
Just for a taste of this, I got my GHILLIE SUIT on and went out and sat in the arborvite and read Julie's first few paragraphs ... just to feel what it might be like. Just to see if I could convince myself that that flash of wings wasn't a pileated.
It is a great contribution to the literature and fresh in a way because it totally avoids the dirty little "incident" in Brinkley, ignoring the recent past and taking us first hand into the presence of "those who came before" ... maybe she did this on purpose, maybe she just couldn't get Fitzcrow to take her calls.
It casts Jackson as a hero, a TB's TB with furrowed brow and dog eared field book, tireless in his seach. A man who actually goes to old ladies houses in florida because their reports of sightings are credible and they live within 5 miles of suitable habitat, even though the habitat in their yard is 15 year old loblolly ...
It outs the guy at TPW who ends up with the simmilar kinds of calls from the unwashed masses, as skeptic of the worst order ... openly prejuding the sightings as of a piece with loch ness and bigfoot ...
But most tenderly it takes us into the company of people who have first hand knowledge of the bird. Julie is one degree of separation from the lord god bird and almost couldn't control her urge to touch James Tanner (she doesn't specify where she wanted to touch him) ...
Thank you Julie for this warm wonderful account and for rising above all of this nasty debate about "evidence" and "proof" and just taking us into the lives of these wonderful people.
To quote the TB ... sniff.
Escépticos queridos de mucho amor,
El Carpinterio Real (RAY-al)
I worked for the USFWS for a time. I once followed up on a call our office received (back in the late 90s) from a woman convinced she had an Ivory-billed. This was in coastal Georgia. I got to her home (in a newish subdivision with scattered Loblolly pines). We talked a bit and I showed her pictures of both IBWO and PIWO. She wasn't budging. I told her I'd poke around the place and look for awhile. When I got back to her driveway, I pulled out my tape player and played a PIWO call. She came running out of her house, 'I just heard it, did you hear it?' Yes, I did ma'am, Yes I did.
This is all Cyberthrush has left? Comparing IBWO to fish? Give it up Cyberthrush. Clearly you are a Skeptic.
(Good comment Carpinterio. I wanted to read that link, but man is she wordy!)
Tom:
This is worthy of its own blog entry ...
Viva the Carpinterio.
Did they ever completely rule out the possibility that the Luneau video shows a Robust Redfish?
I found her website and read the piece in May 2005, at the time I thought she had painted a real breeding pair of IBWOs.
Fantasy and reality - is there a difference, if you believe it exists then it exists, it's as simple as that.
And I thought this weblog should cease on May 19th.
Like the person said, it just get's crazier and crazier.
Escépticos: Miss Julie's article first appeared in Birdwatcher's Digest last millenium (May/June 1999 issue). Muchas gracias El Carpinterio.
Cyberthrush continues gnarled thinking; the evidence for the fish--actual specimens--is real, convincing, and repeated. I couldn't find a description of what they taste like, however. By contrast, our poet laureates have established that Ivory-bill tasted like crow, probably fishcrow, when well-seasoned. How is it that in 1941 one could be "attracted by a most unusual noise," stop the car, find three Ivory-billed Woodpeckers, and describe them convincingly, including the "bright white bill," but today's observers only give us weak, single character, fleeting glimpses to evaluate? It's about overreaching and inaccurate claims that are hyped far out of proportion to their worth, Cyberthrush.
They can find a live, trapped Laotian rat not seen for 11 million years, YET, 3 years of the most INTENSIVE bird search on the planet finds NOTHING.
BUT I BELIEVE IT EXISTS.
oh oh, does that mean we wait 11,000,000 million years before the IBWO is declared extinct.
We got to get some real news. Even the peeps over on Birdforum have only Florida Pathers and Rocky Redfish to debate.
What happened to the Texas boys, TB? Out of the woods yet? Can you blame them for not posting updates? Nothing yet. No nothing yet. NOT NOTHING YET!!
Actually, they are probably done already. They are just sitting int he woods realizing that they have nothing to present to the world and are discussing among themselves. "Holy sh*t. We got nothin'. We goin' to be laughed out big time. I'm not going out there. No, you go. No, you go....."
Recent Cyberthrush ramblings help to illustrate where we're at...everyone has given up on defending the evidence. No one cares to consider it anymore. Cyberthrush has recently given up on Luneau, and in a natural progression, now finds it interesting that some critters live among us undetected. Yes, absolutely, and if the "Ivory-Bill Lives", it lives completely undetected.
It's no longer even vaguely credible to suggest that there is some sort of gentleman's disagreement about the strength of the evidence. Everyone has abandoned the evidence, only the wishful thinking that was the catalyst for this whole affair remains.
The BF discussion started when Pilty asked if people could list the vertebrates in North America that had been thought to be extinct, but were rediscovered. This sucker came up, which itself has quite a story. It was never well known, and a bunch of the notes and specimens "disappeared". It was rediscovered, and a few populations have been found.
Pilty's point was that the rediscovery of anything but bugs is very rare in these parts, which goes contrary to suggestions made by Minnie Me (MMny, or something like that on BF)(he is a rich land of suggestions, never says anything for real and insults people with great sort-of 1850's insults....stuff like thats perposterous and full of intellectual disshonesty"). It'll be a HOOT if these guys run with the Sucker.
Muchas Gracias for the info that the verbose zickeefoose piece was written in 1999 - it changes the carpiterio's thoughts about it a little, and it does explain how she manages to get though the whole thing without refernce to Fitzcrow et al ... and Ivorybills live in arkansas .. because there was no Fitzcrow et al ... and no one thought there were ivory bills in AR ...
But it does add some new info ... consider how this article treats Jackson ...
Jerry Jackson, by virtue of his unique combination of ornithological expertise, woodsman's smarts, and unalloyed faith, refuses to close the book on the ivory-billed woodpecker. Alone among all those I've spoken with, he continues to search. He truly believes that, somewhere on the planet, ivorybills still hitch and rap and toss their fluffy topknots, pound their great shining bills into bark, fly in long straight lines over a sea of treetops. As much as I would like to see an ivory-billed woodpecker, I wish more that Jerry would see one.
Clearly the people at Fitzcrow et al and SCIENCE didn't want Jerry to see one, or they might have had him in the inner circle ... instead of telling him to get his own peer review if wants to dicker about the evidence in the AUK. Message from Fitzcrow, "Jerry, I'm hurt by your sound bites".
And Shackleford, the guy from TPWD, does he still sound the same as he did in 1999 when he was fond of putting the unwashed sightings that came in daily from the good folks in Tejas, in the "bigfoot and loch ness" filedrawer?? Or did TPWD fund the look see that TB keeps raving about??
My how times change ...
Tanner, if I could just touch the hem of your garment.
If I could just touch one part of your robe.
I know I'd be saved, My sins all forgiven
If I could just touch him I know I'd be whole.
"It's no longer even vaguely credible to suggest that there is some sort of gentleman's disagreement about the strength of the evidence. Everyone has abandoned the evidence, only the wishful thinking that was the catalyst for this whole affair remains."
Here here! Well said!
Thank-you.
Mike R.
Seattle
Carpenterio,
You know that Jackson has been part of the USFWS recovery team since before CLO's "discovery" - adding insult to injury. As the lead ornithologist on the team the decision to leave him out, and let him know the day before the press conference with Gail "Oh Holy One" Norton is inexcusable.
This was done, not to keep Jackson out of the inner circle, but to humiliate him, and to give Fitzcrow the seat at the head of the table. For God's Sake I knew before Jackson cause a Rich Donor told me about it.
Can you imagine that meeting where the recovery team gets together and Fitzcrow has 15 months of preparation, and Jackson has about 3 days! Do you suppose Fitzcrow just walked up and pushed him out of the chair!
That part of the power play was done to unseat Jackson as the Grand Poohbah of the IBWO World, and Methinks Fitzcrow will have several Karmic lifetimes to make up for that.
But read the way Juile Zickefoose writes about him ... don't get me wrong, Juile is on NPR, she is a wonderful artist, sensitive, perceptive ... she is wonderful, talented ... you just can't say enough good things about her character. In this article she worships Jerry Jackson ... her words form a halo around him.
Her reverence for him forms the central conceit of the article ... she dreams of seeing an IBWO - and in the end what she wants more than ANYTHING ... is to have Jerry Jackson see an IBWO ...
It is like saying, here have my kindney. It is like portraying him in the finest tradition of of my people juxtaposed with heyzoose himself.
Read her words:
Jerry Jackson, by virtue of his unique combination of ornithological expertise, woodsman's smarts, and unalloyed faith, refuses to close the book on the ivory-billed woodpecker. Alone among all those I've spoken with, he continues to search.
She has gone from this reverntial awe of this "uniquely qualifed" almost saintlike keeper of the flame ... to being used by Fishcrow as a blurb endorsement on his video.
Fitzcrow turns someone Julie reveres beyond all estimation into an enemy of the state, and then has the balls to stop taking calls and toss the whole thing in Rorbaugh's lap ...
Words fail ...
Julie Z you must atone ... you must stand with your fellow artist sibley and say ... enough is enough. There never has been any evidence.
It's like, GNARLY, not "GNARLED." Like, DUH.
VG
Shackelford got the call from Arvin, who got the funding first from the fed. Now you can't expect a guy like Shackelford to be left out of the "biggest conservation story of the last 1000 years", can you? So of course, he leapt right into the fire. The 2nd tier reps can't be expected to do any better than the first, can they?
TB, where are they? They still collecting ticks or what?
Did you read the letter, posted at BF, that Jackson wrote to the nice lady who saw 2 IBWO on a telephone pole while driving?
It's the nicest politest letter. After all this time. After being screwed by Fitzcrow, he's still in there plugging away.
I would have said, "You stupid lady. Ivory Bills are extinct. Never ever write me again, you cretin." Not Jackson though. Got to admire that.
No one cares to consider it anymore. Cyberthrush has recently given up on Luneau, and in a natural progression, now finds it interesting that some critters live among us undetected. Yes, absolutely, and if the "Ivory-Bill Lives", it lives completely undetected.
Goalposts are surprisingly light and easy to carry long distances.
Perhaps ivory-billed woodpeckers evolved the ability to blend into their surroundings like chameleons. And they no longer roost in tree cavities, but live in underwater dens in a symbiotic relationship with beavers who use the IBWO's invisible feathers to line their nests.
Every conceivable possibility must be considered before anyone can reasonably claim the IBWO is extinct, including the possiblity that the IBWO's possess supernatural powers.
Some frogs can hibernate underground in the desert for years. Birds are related to reptiles, which are related to amphibians.
These possibilities need to be addressed in detail before we rashly conclude the IBWO has gone extinct.
What God wants, God gets.
(God help us all)
- Roger Waters
If God wanted us to have Ivorybills,
we'd have them by God.
And then we too could live on the juicy cerambycid larvae tucked under the bark.
the mystic cyberthrush speaketh:
60 years might represent a big chunk in the life of a human, but it's a moment in the life of a species.
Six THOUSAND years is a moment in the evolutionary history of many large animal species.
So let's start searching for the Great Auk, the dodo and elephant bird. A living elephant bird would be far cooler than a living ivory-billed woodpecker. I'd like to have one as a pet, ride it around town, and watch it disembowel kids who trespass on my bulbs.
The searchers are not finding IBWOs because they've adapted and changed - not into super skulkers though, they just have to look up! They are zipping about high overhead like migrant Pintails...wait, no...with wing beats like Peregrines! They've turned to hawking swifts and swallows out of the sky. Yeah, that's it.
Mike R.
Seattle
We're ALL ivory-billed woodpeckers!
Share the love.
"Goalposts are light and surprisingly easy to carry long distances." Wow. Does that need attribution if repeated?
In this small corner of the universe Coach Tom keeps the goalposts pretty well set at the Sibley Standard: "Redundancy. Repeated sightings by independent observers of birds really well seen." "Extinct or not extinct" is interesting but not terribly important. The very boring truth around here is that the ivory-bill evidence doesn't come anywhere close to scoring, but if anybody should kick one through the goalposts, great, we'll all get up off our hands and cheer... most of us aren't holding our breath.
Jesu Christo, you folks must have been on crack today?
What happened? Somebody give me the short version. I don't have time to read all this.
Hmmm...what happened? Well....
Birforum as usual was crazy
Cyberthrush's post was lazy
Our own Ray-al was particularly thoughtful
Everyone agreed that Fitzcrow was aweful
I think that does it. No wait...
Methinks came out of the closet
A few others also lost it.
TB thinks the texas boys may be covered in ticks
Thank god for Amy. We needed more chicks
Hope that helps.
Thank god for Amy. We needed more chicks
Aw, shucks.
Sleep tight, Skeptics, may you dream about Ivory Bills.
TB
Speaking of suckers did folks see that Team Sapsucker won the 2006 World Series of Birding.
http://www.birds.cornell.edu/wsb/press_victory_2006.html
The 'Suckers led by Fitz found the most species and raised the most money! Woo hoo! As far as finding birds and raising money Cornell Lab of Mythology can't be beat!
anonanon (yeah, I got my reasons too)
P.S. When did the IBWO "Found!" banner get bumped from the top of the Lab's home page?
http://www.birds.cornell.edu/
Hey, I came to this blog to wallow in my asocial skepticism and feed my view that the world is a terrible place made all the worse by institutional hypocrisy. I wanted the sort of mindless droning offered up by the clones on Birdforum. Instead the comment sections here have turned into witty and incisive exchanges with an increasing level of bonhomie and camaraderie. Is this any way for a bunch of bitter insecure skeptics to act?
I am off to look at real birds for a few months and wish Tom, El Carpinterio, TB and the alien a good summer. Hope to see you all at next year’s “It Wasn’t a Pileated” Festival. I will be the one wearing the name tag that says “Anonymous”.
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