I, for one, firmly believe that the existence of abnormal Pileateds is not necessary for either the sightings or the video.I agree that it's not necessary. However, I'd make two points:
1. We've got a bunch of observers, not all of them inexperienced, who get fleeting glimpses of birds that seem to look a whole lot like Pileateds, but seem to have too much white on the wings. These sightings are concentrated in the Cache River area.
2. We've got an admission from Cornell team member Jim Bednarz that there just happens to be an isolated population of Pileated Woodpeckers in the Cache River area that have an uncharacteristic amount of white on their wings.
None of us may ever know what the observers actually saw.
To me, given the evidence, it makes complete sense that any given observer may have glimpsed one of the abnormal Pileateds known to be in the area, rather than one of the normal Pileateds.
Some text from this link:
Arkansas State University professor of wildlife ecology Jim Bednarz has seen several pileated woodpeckers with an abnormal amount of white wing feathers in the Cache River refuge. With Team Elvis, he pursued three birds that showed a flash of white in flight and white on their backs as they were perched. All were pileated.
....
Bednarz ... believes there is an isolated population of pileated woodpeckers in the Cache river bottoms who have an uncharacteristic amount of white on their wing feathers...
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19 comments:
None of us may ever know what the observers actually saw.
Yes. It might have actually been an Ivory-billed Woodpecker.
Maybe Tom, but your point #1 is certainly wrong, IMHO. These are the same people that tell us that the video shows too much white. And we agree that it doesn't.
And as for point #2. I no longer trust anything these folks say. Show me the pics of these abnormal Pileateds. If there is a population and they had all those people in there with video cameras on all the time, then lets see. And if it turns out to be true, then they should have swallowed even harder before publishing the rebuttals.
Finally, anyone and I mean anyone who has seen enough Pileateds know that sometimes when the bird lands a white patch shows on the back of the perched bird. Just the white base of the underside feathers showing thru because of the way the wing folded. These are not abnormal pileateds.
To understand this story, you have to understand Gallagher and Fitz. Gallagher was the true believer that was so hyped up that he "saw" the bird. Poor Fitz was taken along for the ride.
Anonymous 1 wrote:
"Yes. It might have actually been an Ivory-billed Woodpecker. "
True in decreasing order of probability:
Normal Pileated Woodpecker
Abnormal Pileated Woodpecker
Normal Ivory-billed Woodpecker
Abnormal Ivory-billed Woodpecker :)
As definitive evidence of the Ivorybill fails to be produced, latter options look less and less likely.
Anonymous wrote:
"Show me the pics of these abnormal Pileateds."
http://www.birds.cornell.edu/ivory/field/from_field_html/whitePIWO
"Show me the pics of these abnormal Pileateds."
Some pics are available here .
I will also say that, instead of quoting Bednarz, look at your original post involving the abnormal pileated seen by Noel Snyder. It would take a lot to fool Noel who is a careful observer.
But he admits that if the bird had flown away immediately he might have forever thought he saw an Ivory Bill. So abnormal Pileateds that look like IBWO do exist.
But we are still asked to believe that they are never seen perched for careful study. They are always flying over for 3 or 4 seconds.
I am mightily amused that we are no longer debating the IBWO but rather abnormal PIWO. Is this what Fitzcrow et al will be reduced to?
No, Tom, show me a pic of an abnormal Pileated that can be confused with and IBWO.
...and that also occurs in the Cache river area. With all those video cameras on all the time and with a "population" living there, surely they got pics.
We should encourage them to publish. And if they do publish such pics, they will almost be admitting that the IBWO was an abnormal pileated.
"I am mightily amused that we are no longer debating the IBWO but rather abnormal PIWO. Is this what Fitzcrow et al will be reduced to? "
Well, maybe so. Even other blogs are now speculating on what happens now if Fitzcrow et al throw in the towel and retract the paper.
Even other blogs are now speculating on what happens now if Fitzcrow et al throw in the towel and retract the paper.
Which ones? I'd like to check them out and have fun in the comment section there too.
We should encourage them to publish. And if they do publish such pics, they will almost be admitting that the IBWO was an abnormal pileated.
This illustrates an interesting split among the subgroups of skeptics. There are those here who acknowledge that CLO has published photos of 'abnormal' PIWOs. (Quite frankly, I don't see how those birds could be confused with an IBWO.)
Then you have the other skeptics (the conspiracy theorists, if you will) who are still calling on CLO to publish "the real" photos, or who otherwise think that CLO is witholding information about these birds, and when that comes out, the conspiracy will be exposed. (Given that the 'hot zone' has always been accessible to the public, I find this latter explanation unsatisfying. If there truly is a 'population' of IBWO-like PIWOs, someone from outside of CLO should have photographed them by now. Though if you're a true conspiracy theorist, you would have figured out by now that CLO eradicated all of these birds before the press conference last year.)
Anonymous Said:-----"No, Tom, show me a pic of an abnormal Pileated that can be confused with and IBWO....and that also occurs in the Cache river area. With all those video cameras on all the time and with a "population" living there, surely they got pics.
We should encourage them to publish. And if they do publish such pics, they will almost be admitting that the IBWO was an abnormal pileated."
If you had taken the time to read the info on the Cornell Website Tom linked to, the following is printed in plain Black & White for one to read. The following statement was made by the man who took the photo of the abnormal pilated show in the photo's, & it just happens to be the original Mr. Ivorybill Woodpecker Photographer himself, Yes the one & the same person who took the original photo that got the ball rolling and if you read futher, it clearly states where these photo's where also taken. The "BAYOU DeVIEW STUDY AREA"!!!!!! These were found by the very same person who took the original video in the very same area while he was continuing his search in what he discribed, "THE MAIN STUDY AREA"!
Quote directly off Cornell Web site on Abnormal Pilated Woodpecker find:
"Concerning a quote attributed to me about the existence of leucistic Pileated Woodpeckers--that is a bit of a spin on some observations that I did make last spring.What I did state to several individuals is that I made three separate sightings on different days of a Pileated Woodpecker that had an abnormal amount of white on the dorsal part of the wing when folded in the Bayou de View study area."
To be fair, I should give a name to the first group of skeptics. How about "the apologists"?
I know you were tongue in cheek, but I, of course, never thought there is a conspiracy to withhold pics.
On the other hand, will you fellows quit posting pictures or references to that silly leucistic woodpecker. What I want pics of is this small population of supposedly abnormal PIWO that look like IBWO in the area. That leucistic woodpecker does not qualify!
I bet there is not such a group. I bet Bednartz was using hyperbole and mis-ids of normal PIWOs. Surely, if there was such a population, Fitzpatrick would have swallowed long and hard before publishing those rebuttals. In fact, I don't think he ever would have done so.
Over the July 4th weekend I went for a walk with my my family on a rail trail (railroad converted to a walking trail.) When we got back to the car, I briefly glanced at the information board for the trail as I was putting some things in the car, and clearly saw a 8.5 x 11 piece of paper posted with a line drawing of a old coal-fired steam train taking up the top half of the page. I can draw you a picture of what I saw. After putting the things in the car I walked the 40 feet to take a closer look at this posting and was pretty stunned to see that in fact it was not an illustration of a steam train, but a line drawing of some other set of elements that my mind had tricked me into thinking was a train (most likely influenced by the mental association with the rail history of the trail.)
In visual situations where there is marginal information sometimes the mind will try to fill in the gaps. Sometimes it gets it wrong. Not saying that's what happened in "the Hot Zone," but that psychological effect does need to be taken into consideration.
anonanon
"On the other hand, will you fellows quit posting pictures or references to that silly leucistic woodpecker. What I want pics of is this small population of supposedly abnormal PIWO that look like IBWO in the area."
1. No one is claiming that any PIWOs in the area actually looked like IBWOs.
2. People are claiming that some PIWOs in the area appeared to have some extra white on their wings.
3. When we refer you to the link with the pictures of the "silly leucistic woodpecker", we want you to look at the last couple of pictures, which do show birds fitting the description in #2.
4. If your "IBWO" ID was based on a fleeting, 100-meter, naked-eye flyby of a bird with "too much white on the wings", you could have very easily been fooled by a Pileated as described in #2. I agree that you could also be easily fooled by a completely normal Pileated.
Tom
Tom, your points 1 thru 3, I agree on. It's your point 4 that I'm having a hard time on.
I have seen those kind of pileateds, with one or maybe two white feathers (or really parts of feathers) showing. Sometimes the wing feathers fold wrong and you are just seeing the white base of one or more PIWO feathers. Sometimes, I can convince myself that it's the odd white feather or two, a dna mistake if you will.
And sometimes, I have realized that they are in this posture
PIWO
This posture is not so uncommon when perched on the side of a tree. It’s almost a threat or alarm display. This photo is an extreme. Often you see this posture from behind rather than the side as in the pic, then it really looks white!
So, sorry, I still don’t believe that there is an abnormal group there. Or that these "abnormals" have enough white to mistake. Now if they had pictures of a group that looked like Noel Snyder’s bird, that I would accept. But I’m not holding my breath.
Course, I guess we could discuss what the definition of abnormal is.
I guess that's what it is. We are arguing over the word "abnormal".
To me, those pics aren't abnormal to the extent that any observer would mistake them for IBWO. (Except for the same observers that would mistake a normal PIWO!)
BTW, as you remember, the Noel Snyder bird had 1 or 2 black feathers in the secondaries. Rather than 1 or 2 white in the black. That would give anyone pause for a moment.
Yes. It might have actually been an Ivory-billed Woodpecker.
But the burden of proof is 100% on Cornell. Brief single observer sightings are notoriously error prone, as is skewing due to expectations. (Look up the history of the NY "Hobby" that was a Peregrine for a lesson of how it can happen even to excellent birders.)
Yes. It might have actually been an Ivory-billed Woodpecker.
But the burden of proof is 100% on Cornell. Brief single observer sightings are notoriously error prone, as is skewing due to expectations. (Look up the history of the NY "Hobby" that was a Peregrine for a lesson of how it can happen even to excellent birders.)
It was sarcasm, LFC.
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