I recently talked to Mike Lanzone from the Carnegie Museum’s Powdermill facility about his sighting during the original, covert season of Cornell-led searching, and why they weren’t able to find any the following year. He felt that the original sightings in the Cache River NWR may have all been of the same bird, dispersing from a source population in the White River NWR, and that the Cornell team erred by putting too many searchers back in Cache last year and not enough in White River. Be that as it may, Mike is one of the best birders in the country, and was quite matter-of-fact about his own sighting of an IB landing on the trunk of a tree some 65 feet away, pulling out a grub, then flying off.1. I thought it odd that the sighting described above wasn't mentioned in "The Grail Bird", and it also didn't make Cornell's list of seven "robust" sightings (considering that Jim Fitzpatrick's 100-meter, naked-eye, 98.5%-confident flyby made the cut).
There’s more backstory to all this than I am willing to put into print, but suffice it to say that the most prominent doubters have axes to grind, and that Cornell may have made some blunders. The IB is a reality.
As is customary, Lanzone's sighting seems to have been significantly embellished over time. Here are some excerpts from a 4/30/05 article on Lanzone:
After realizing he had just seen an ivory-billed woodpecker thought to have vanished from the Earth 60 years ago, Westmoreland County ornithologist Mike Lanzone burst into tears.2. It's absolutely ridiculous to suggest that Cornell didn't deploy enough searchers in the White River area last season.
...
As he floated past a giant cypress tree, he caught a flash of white out of the corner of his eye.
"The bird flew off a stump after it saw me and flew from left to right through the woods in front of me," Lanzone said. "I got a good look at it for three to four seconds. I knew it was an ivory-billed woodpecker.
"I've observed birds for 20 years. Everything about it -- the way it flew, the size of it, where the white was on the wings -- I knew it was it."
...
Scientists hope as many as 30 of the birds might be living in the area.
According to Cornell's recent report on the '05-'06 season (page 15), over 27,000 person hours were spent searching in that area (and another 8400 in the Bayou de View area).
3. Note that Lanzone was evidently still publicly selling his alleged sighting as recently as last month.
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Hmmm ... I'm gonna guess at a number of something, something that is perhaps as rare as the grail bird itself: Number of world-class birders that are currently observing that have seen an "old growth" IBWO [that is, one from > 60 years ago] so that they can unmistakenly identify said bird: Zero.
Lanzone is a known stringer in PA. His birding skills are excellent, but his judgment is highly questionable. You can bet CLO knew this when they decided not to include his report.
This morning I sat in a deer stand watching the juncos, sparrows, cardinals, and redstarts. I heard the distinctive double rap several times to the east in an area of old and dying trees. This immediately caught my attention so I positioned myself in that direction. The large woodpecker cartoonishly hitched around the tree revealing itself to be a pileated.
Point being -- it doesn't take a rocket scientist to film a large woodpecker. Also, just because one thinks he hears or sees something, does not mean it is actually what they thought it was at first. Further, I do not wish to be given public funds to look for ivorybills because a double rap was heard this morning. It was a pileated.
Bona Ditto
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Redstarts and juncos in the same spot in late December?
After realizing he had just seen an ivory-billed woodpecker thought to have vanished from the Earth 60 years ago, Westmoreland County ornithologist Mike Lanzone burst into tears.
Oh yeah? Oh yeah?
Check this: two years ago I was clearing brush at my uncles farm near Ledo Creek, Oregon, when I heard a noise, turned around, and saw a mama Sasquatch nursing her baby. Mama took off into the woods on foot, effortlessly leaping over a 12 foot high woodpile in her way.
I was so overwhelmed I burst into tears AND cried uncontrollably for a solid 8 minutes AND vomited up my breakfast AND broke out into a rash that covered my entire right forearm AND I was physically unable to speak until 6.25 hours after.
So Mike's sighting isn't really that impressive.
Amy, that rash was poison oak...very common in Oregon. And how do you know that the Sasquatch was nursing its own baby...aren't you just assuming that? What do you really know about the social dynamics/nursing behavior of these large primates?
"Lanzone is a known stringer"
Come now, we only accept real evidence here. If you've got the goods on Lanzone, lets have it!
What do you really know about the social dynamics/nursing behavior of these large primates?
I am one of the world's foremost experts on the subject. Everyone would know a lot more about Sasquatch nursing if only Science magazine would publish my papers.
Amy Lester, I can't find any published articles under your name. What ARE your credentials?
OK Amy, I shouldn't reveal this here, but what the heck...I was one of the two Science reviewers who turned down your last Bigfoot Breast Feeding paper last year. While I found the extensive argumentation with painted models interesting, that four second out-of-focus video just didn't cut it for me. I thought it highly likely to have been of a more common and extant dark skinned homonid. Better luck next time.
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