Monday, October 09, 2006

More links

1. Someone linked to this article from the comment section. An excerpt (the bold font is mine):
[Mike] Collins, who has recorded 12 sightings in the past year, intends to return in the winter, after hunting season, when the forest is still.
2. Duck hunters saved the Ivory-bill?

A reader points out "A Lost Bird Found", a show currently running on VS (formerly OLN). From the VS website:
It's long been known that conservation efforts benefit all species, and nowhere is that more clear than the Big Woods of Arkansas. Duck hunters saved the Cache River refuge back in the 1970s, and now it's the site of the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker (once thought to be extinct) rediscovery. Wade gets the story on Wood Ducks, and Woodpeckers.
3. More from The Huntsville Times here.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

http://birdingisnotacrime.blogspot.com/2006/09/message-from-tyler-hicks.html#links

From the Birding Is Not A Crime blog, a letter from Tyler Hicks:

A great time to visit is in April as the forest lights up in an almost neon green. The numerous Prothonotary Warblers will be blasting their songs and Swallow-tailed Kites will be swooping over the ancient cypress. I think it is important to remember that no matter how amazing Ivory-bills are, they are just one part of this fascinating eco-system.

Read that and try to believe that some folks are praising the Auburn team for their "cautionary" tone, e.g., "All they did was release what info that actually had -- some sightings, some audio. If expectations were overbuilt this time, blame the rumor mill."

Anonymous said...

The Huntsville times:

The evidence is substantial: numerous sightings, sound recordings of both the "double rap" and the kent call. The recorded sounds number in the hundreds.

Literally hundreds of millions of microseconds of evidence!!!!

In addition, the team found apparent nest holes and peeled bark strongly suggestive of ivory-billed activity.

Non-scientist low-rent media bought the lie. What a surprise.

It seems a good bet that some ivory-billeds have survived.

Wha ...? LOL!! Who wrote this article? Do they know that they can DOUBLE THEIR MONEY right here? Five hundred bucks to me if they are wrong, 1000 bucks to them if I am right and the "evidence" supporting a living IBWO remains just as crappy next year as it is today.

I have to wonder: Were all the sightings dismissed because the bird was considered extinct?

No, they were "dismissed" because humans can and do see all sorts of garbage every day.

And was it considered extinct because there had been no "credible" sightings?

It was considered extinct because it was known to be critically endangered before its habitat was largely destroyed. Since then, attempts to provide proof of this large, flashy, noisy bird's existence failed miserably for more than half a century. That is why the IBWO is considered extinct.

Did the scientific community unwittingly create a Catch-22 situation?

No. But ornithologists who pretend that the IBWO is alive are playing a silly con game.

Anonymous said...

Five hundred bucks to me if they are wrong, 1000 bucks to them if I am right

You know what I mean. ;)

Anonymous said...

Is it possible for all of us to at least agree that Ivory-billeds are not in all of these states,

Arkansas,
Louisiana,
Florida?

If we can't agree that the IBWO is extinct, then can't we at least agree that they don't exist in all the above listed states?

Have we at least made that much progress?

How about we go back to the Practical Joke possibility? I mean it's looking more and more likely, yes?

And what ever happened to the airport?

Anonymous said...

Well, I'm hoping for the deer hypothesis to prove true.

Would that be great or what? The ultimate irony! The ultimate satire. The penultimate denouement to our little fiasco here. The big cheeses taken in by deer.

The airport stopped by Bambi. It can't get any better, can it?

Talk about your gift from god. That would be it!

Anonymous said...

Bambi the Movie

According to Wikipedia for the movie Bambi, Disney took the liberty of changing Bambi's species into a white-tailed deer (from a roe deer) to visually emphasize him against the colored backgrounds.

Who else has taken the liberty of changing a species in a movie in order for it to get more attention? Why the CLO of course. While it is clear that most True Believers spend too much time in Fantasyland and that the CLO has shown itself to be a Mickey Mouse operation, we didn't know the IBWO/Disney connection was so strong. And seeing how both the Disney empire and CLO operate, you know there will soon be a Bambi/IBWO movie if it can be used to fleece the American public. I can't wait to see Bambi and Thumper giggling as they make crank "kent" calls into an ARU. If they can work Goofy into the script, I nominate Fishcrow for the part.

Anonymous said...

Well, Fishcrow is already finding IBWOs. This guy sure doesn't need to wait till the foliage drops. Man, these big-city folks can sure find the Ivory-bills. Makes us southern boys plumb ashamed.

Anonymous said...

Remember that scene where Bambi carved a large roost hole in a tree so he could hide from the wolf?

Neither do I.

Anonymous said...

Obviously Mr. Collins should have little birding credibility with his claims of seeing IBWO field marks in his fuzzy videos that expert birders cannot see. It doesn't take a genius to figure out the explanation for his many IBWO sightings.

Cornell lost their credibility, at least to me, when they ID'ed a branch stub as an IBWO.

I don't think Auburn's tone has been particularly "cautionary." They have told the world they've seen the bird, but they can't actually prove it yet. They make it clear they will, however.

chopuquie1 (or whatever his name is) on BF should have lost whatever credibility he had when he told Tim he'd seen a couple of IBWOs in Florida, only to backpedal madly by later admitting, under pressure, he'd only caught glimpses from a speeding boat. He does make it clear he's a man of mystery possessing extraordinary powers of woodsmanship and athleticism, and a man quite famous under his own name. AND he has seen some IBWO photos. It will come as no shock that they won’t be released for a couple of months or so. The proof is always just a few months or weeks away, isn’t it?

I notice some true believers are starting to remember hearing the loud wing noise of the IBWO. Guess they’ve been reading this blog.

I think that’s one of the key points Tom has made that can hardly be over-emphasized: IBWOs were very noisy fliers. If you are claiming multiple sightings in an area, and you have many ARUs set up, you’ll be recording the sounds of IBWO wings. But only if they’re there.

And I found a typo on another blog. It should read: Ivory-bills LiVE(D)!

Anonymous said...

Good odds Mistress Amy. I'll have to take my money elsewhere.

Anonymous said...

I agree with the sentiment that chupacabra, or whatever his name is over at BF, has blown it by revealing that his "ibwo glimpses" were from a boat going at a pretty fast clip. Anyway, he went on to say something like the "fishing was more important." What a hoot!

Hard to take serious some of the things these people come up with, but some people apparently do.