Please also see the editorial authored in part by Jeffrey Walters.
Hill's IBWO web page is back online here.
An excerpt from this Huntsville Times Press-Register article:
"We've got bad video," the Auburn team's lead researcher, Geoff Hill, said of footage his team shot in Florida. "We decided bad video is worse than no video, and it distracts from what is our good evidence."Bobby Harrison weighs in here:
"I think it's wonderful," said Harrison, a wildlife photographer and instructor at Oakwood College. "We've got birds in two locations now."
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39 comments:
OK, I've had a look... What the hell...I'll stick with my position stated earlier in Tom's post about the Mennill site. As I said there,
"I like the evidence. It has a pleasant Hardy Boys kind of a quality to it...
So y'all, until further notice, I'm with the Hardy Boys."
pd
At least the documetation of the sightings is more substantial than Cornell's.
Disappointing that all sightings are of birds in flight.
Disappointing (though not unexpected) to see that a lot of the reported sightings are of trailing white on fleeing birds.
Did people read and understand the Sibley paper!?!
If you are viewing a fleeing PIWO that twists its forewing down on the downstroke you will see white below and black above from behind. If you misinterpret this view to be the dorsal side of a wing then you will "see" a trailing white patch, in fact it is not. So throw out as evidence all the sightings of trailing white on fleeing birds, it's not a reliable fieldmark.
An IBWO overhead should really show a distinct trailing white edge, not a black silhouette of the entire wing. The transluscent secondaries and inner primaries should really stand out in a silhouetted view. See the photographed IBWO in this image:
http://www.birds.cornell.edu/ivory/IBW_banner.jpg
Throw out as evidence any overhead views described as silhouettes without a description of this distinctive field mark.
Woodpeckers hovering, hmmm...
So you're left with basically a couple of Tyler Hicks views, one that was naked eye at 150 feet. Don't know how good his vision is. His descriptions are interesting. At least he was able to describe the entire bird and not just a headless/tailless pair of wings.
Scalings, you call those scalings!?!
If these birds are around you should be able to find the sign of their feedings. Those photos are totally underwhelming if that's the best they've got, and why wouldn't they publish the best they had?
Got to get a photograph! This season! Good luck!
I just finished the article. After all the rancor, I just have to respect a quote like this:
"The persistence of Ivory-billed Woodpeckers will be established definitively only by a clear photograph or video image, a fresh feather, or perhaps genetic analysis of material from a nest or roost cavity, but the evidence presented here warrants an expanded search and protection of this bottomland forest habitat."
I see nothing wrong with that(truth be told, in my mind, even NO EVIDENCE warrants protection of bottomland forests).
A couple of things that this report has that the Arkansas reports lacked:
1. A detailed sighting by an actual serious experienced birder that noted many IBWO features. Considering the qualifications of the observer and the level of detail seen, this is the best sighting since the Singer tract. It is hard to to make a realistic case that this nothing but a Pileated plus wishful thinking.
2. A whole lot more openness with data.
As for the audio, sorry Amy et al, but those are NOT normal or even uncommon-but-not-extraordinary "swamp sounds" from normal swamp critters and tree squeeks. Especially at the average encounter rate of once per 30-40 hrs of audio. The double knocks, OK, very interesting; but I've not heard even one of those kenty sounds in over 1000 hours of time in similar habitats. They're not an exact match for the Tanner recordings; but of course if they were y'all would claim fabrication. Variation in details is pretty normal in biology.
Given the frequency of encounters, someone should be able to get a photo this winter.
Fire away.
Bill,
You are stupid. It's official.
How's that for fire?
Ok, maybe Bill is not the right person to save us. There have to be many many birders headed over there now to photograph the birds.
Mennill says "the birds are all up and down the river". So come on birders. The river is open to everyone.
Let's go get'em!! The video that is!!
"... pleasant Hardy Boys kind of a quality to it..."
I agree. A sort of naive hapless stupidity. Couldn't agree more.
"How's that for fire?"
About what I expected. The rant from Lester (who by her own description neither knows nor cares jack squat about birds) casting aspersions on my ancestry back twelve generations should be coming next.
Yeah, well, at least twelve generations of your ancestors were stupid too!
Something like that? With the same sort of evidence that Auburn has for IBWOs? Like that?
I love how one bird following another in flight is cited as a supplementary field mark. "Pecks wood" is an even better field mark for IBWO, distinguishing it from similar species such as Anhingas and Wood Ducks, but apparently none of the various IBWO "discoverers" have observed this yet.
Bill, Amy's comments may have been intemperately worded, but she has good reason to be upset at this point, and at least her thoughts on the Florida IBWOs make sense.
The problem with Amy is that believers have a hard time knocking down her main point. Which is just Sagan's.
No one has anywhere near enough proof that passes the "extraordinary proof" test.
It's really just that simple.
(Which come to think of it isn't a problem with Amy but a problem with the believers.)
Uh oh, you just called Robert E. Lee stupid. Better not set foot south of the Mason-Dixon line ever again...
Lee is dead in the south, Bill. Haven't your heard?
It's the new south! Hiltons, Sheritans, Mcdonalds, etc. It's better now. Don't you agree?
....the yankees have made it safe to go into the swamps again.
Amy's thoughts make sense? That it's all a bunch of premeditated fabrications? That is considered "sense" around here?
Sheesh, give me a break.
Actually I do kind of like the evidence, I think I'm ready to take Amy's bet.
Amy, are you there?
Here's the deal Amy: Let's agree that CLO was, and is, dead wrong about Arkansas, and there is no compelling evidence of IBWO since Singer. Good, that's behind us.
With the Hardy Boys though, it's a new game. You don't know what's up and I don't know what's up. I'm going on a hunch, not out of any great confidence, but because it's good sporting fun. I'll put a thousand bucks on the Hardy Boys:
Within one year from today photographic evidence will be produced supporting the Auburn/Windsor find. It doesn't have to be their image and it doesn't have to be their search area, but it does have to be on the Choctawhatchee or nearby Florida panhandle. Photo or video, film or digital, all are OK. Isolated stills or clips alone don't count; the image must be available for review in its complete recorded context. The source of the image must be publicly known. It must be clear to most informed viewers that the image is, with near certainty, an Ivory-billed Woodpecker.
A year from today you can make your check out to the home team (I'm in Michigan), Biological Sciences at the University of Windsor. That'll be $1000.00(US). Please name an institution you care to champion, I require that it be a non profit organization whose primary focus is conservation or biology. (The Amy Lester Scholarship Fund does not count.) Tom is the judge. His decision on 9/26/07 is final.
So there's what you've been looking for. Take it or Leave it.
pd
Make that premeditated mindless fabrications. I would agree to that. Just more groupthink.
What really makes it bad is that they didn't learn CLO lessons. Send the people into the field in pairs. That will stop all these sightings cold. It's provides a needed check on "exuberant enthusiasm".
And keep the video tape running, stupid. How about that lesson?
Well, if Lester's recent tirades are considered good science and rational argument, then I guess I'll refile the bookmark for this site over with the "Apollo Hoax," "Flat Earth," "Wooden Ivorybills in Orange Trees," and "Assorted Conspiracy Theories" sites.
Yes!! Bill!! Finally, you got it!
That's exactly where this entire IBWO fiasco should be filed under! Good job.
Yes, but Bill, have you noticed that you don't actually argue with Amy's comments. Because you can't!
Read each of her points again. All you will be able to say is yes, yes, yes. You can still believe. Heck you can still believe in the toothfairy if you want. But you won't be able to argue with her point by point.
Correct me if I'm wrong Bill, but I don't think Amy insisted there was fabrication. She seemed quite open to the more likely possibility of mass delusion.
Did everyone listen to the 4 Kents from 3/15? The file called "Kent 2006 03 15 1007h.wav".
A final restatement of my opinions and then I must be off.
Sightings: Most are glimpses that proved no useful information -- "big" "lots of white" "long neck" etc. However, the best of them are more detailed than anything else that has been presented in many decades by experienced observers, especially in that the underwing pattern was noted. Were this just a very rare, not presumed extinct, bird, my vote on a review committee might well be "accept."
Audio: The double knocks -- interesting but out of context they could be jes' 'bout anything. They have a superficial similarity to cars passing over expansion joints on bridges, but that is a source that would be extremely easy to identify and rule out. The kenty noises -- not a normal sound from common sources. An awful lot of them for them to be from spurious flooky sources. See my comments earlier about the utility of ARU data.
Lack of photos: really frustrating.
I've responded to Lester's points (which are the same as Nelson's, etc. etc.) so many times in so many different places what's the point of rehashing it all again? I just state what I think, which I should point out sometimes is in 100% agreement with Nelson and 100% disagreement with CLO, sometimes the opposite. Lester gets on my nerves because she presents herself as an absolute-truth-knowing fundie, just like the Intelligent Design crowd. Maybe she spent so much time arguing with them that she's gotten stuck in that mode.
"Were this just a very rare, not presumed extinct, bird, my vote on a review committee might well be "accept." "
Exactly Amy's point, Bill. None of it comes to Extraordinary Proof. You and Amy agree!
Which also just proves, of course, how many accepted rare bird reports are probably wrong. Sorry, couldn't resist.
CLO couldn't tell the upper from the lower surface of the wing after reviewing their video countless times, so why would the Auburn folks be able to do so based on brief flyby sightings?
Bill, I'm glad your not on the record committee in my state.
"Did everyone listen to the 4 Kents from 3/15? The file called "Kent 2006 03 15 1007h.wav"."
I did. What's your point?
They sound like someone playing a horn to me.
The rant from Lester (who by her own description neither knows nor cares jack squat about birds)
Yeah, but I know a lot about gullible willfully deluded people, Bill, and their enablers.
You're one of them.
Why won't any of these "convinced" people put their money where their mouth is?
I find that odd, to say the least.
Bill
It is hard to to make a realistic case that this nothing but a Pileated plus wishful thinking.
No, it's incredibly easy to make that case.
The mere fact that we are now talking about ivory billed woodpeckers "unique chisel marks" which were never a big talking point until now is just more evidence of the farce.
Next we'll be hearing something about the unique "temperature variation of the double knock frequency" that has never been observed with pileateds, or some garbage like that.
Actually I do kind of like the evidence, I think I'm ready to take Amy's bet.
I think I lost a coment to blogger so I'll repeat what I wrote:
pd, you're on. it's a deal.
Within one year from today photographic evidence will be produced supporting the Auburn/Windsor find. It doesn't have to be their image and it doesn't have to be their search area, but it does have to be on the Choctawhatchee or nearby Florida panhandle. Photo or video, film or digital, all are OK. Isolated stills or clips alone don't count; the image must be available for review in its complete recorded context. The source of the image must be publicly known. It must be clear to most informed viewers that the image is, with near certainty, an Ivory-billed Woodpecker.
I would modify the last sentence to require that the documentation must be clear to anybody with half a brain that it is a living ivory-billed woodpecker and not a pileated woodpecker, without resort to bogus arguments about "posture" or "wingbeat frequency.
We're talking about the Lord God Bird here, after all, and not some obscure grey tit.
Thanks Amy,
I understand that you would change my last sentence but I think it's pretty good in the drama-free form. I'll defer to Tom's good judgment if this disputed sentence actually comes into play.
pd
I would like for birders to listen to the kent sounds on the Auburn site while considering some of the short communication vocalizations made by Snow, White-fronted or even Canada Goose. There is quite a resemblance on some of these audio files.
uOk, I have found a "kent" call that most certainly sounds like a common flute. Listen to
Kent 2006 04 04 1043h.wav at
http://web2.uwindsor.ca/courses/biology/dmennill/IBWO/IBWOsounds.php
Listen to the first call. What does that sound like to you? Maybe not a flute, but sure as hell not an IBWO.
Listen to the first call. What does that sound like to you? Maybe not a flute, but sure as hell not an IBWO.
Of course, the only recordings of IBWOs were made in the pre-Tull era, so we have no idea what sounds the IBWOs might be grooving to now.
I think I heard a few bars of "Ruby Tuesday" in one of the other wave files.
I just don’t get it on this Chocktawatchee thing. Now we have small groups of birders working apparently small areas, but hearing kents and double-knocks
virtually every day. And, these sounds appear in the audio files to be at pretty close distance. How can one continue to hear these sounds and never, never see the big showy creature? In mid-winter, without much foliage? Except the obligatory 100 meter
flash-in-the-pan flight looks. Do these birds ever sit still?
Is there any species of bird that is so stealthy that it could ALWAYS elude every human in the woods? Something really fishy, here. The old collectors bagged some 400 +- IBWO specimens with pop-guns and bird shot. Figure how closethey needed to be to the birds. 50 feet? 100 feet? Where are the roost holes? The nesting sites? Where are the territorial pairs defending nest sites, kent-ing constantly to be heard a ¼ mile or more? Where are the family groups flying in straight lines over the canopy? Or across rivers? Or across roads? Calling constantly in communication. Where are the squawking nestlings, juveniles? Where are the IBWOs pounding hell out of the big trees, sending massive hunks of bark crashing to the ground or water, awakening every creature in the swamp, all the while kenting away to their heart’s content?
I ain’t buyin’ it.
I think the Best Explanation is that when all the IBWOs were being shot and killed, only a pair of extremely intelligent and clever IBWOs survived. Actually, it was probably only a single clever female and a male that she selected simply to fertilize her eggs so she could be the Queen of the New Race of Super IBWOs.
This Queen (probably still alive today, due to her extraordiary cunning) went so far as to murder any of her young which did not pass her strict and severe criteria for elusiveness and intelligence.
And so we find ourselves today faced with a race of IBWOs that is diabolically clever. By now they have probably learned to disguise themselves in the carcasses of pileated woodpeckers which they capture and kill by luring them into booby-trapped roost holes.
They have long ceased to live in trees themselves, forgoing the majestic views for the eternal safety of extensive underground lairs which they exhume with the aid of gophers and beavers whom they have hypnotized or enslaved ...
Amy, you should be the author of children's books. You would scare the bejesus out of them with your stories.
It would be fun!
I wrote..
" ......Where are the IBWOs pounding hell out of the big trees, sending massive hunks of bark crashing to the ground or water, awakening every creature in the swamp, all the while kenting away to their heart’s content?
Then Amy dutifully wrote...
"They have long ceased to live in trees themselves, forgoing the majestic views for the eternal safety of extensive underground lairs which they exhume with the aid of gophers and beavers whom they have hypnotized or enslaved ..."
OK. I sort of figured that was it.
I knew the gopher and beaver angle was involved, somehow.
Thanks for clearing that up, Amy.
You're a trooper.
No "wooden wings" noted. Hill's January 26th description notes that the bird made no sound at all as it flew.
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