More awards

The Nature Conservancy in Arkansas has just handed out some IBWO-related awards (the bold font is mine):

During the luncheon, the Conservancy also presented awards to four individuals from federal and state agencies for their leadership in the recovery of the ivory-billed woodpecker and the development and implementation of conservation plans for the Big Woods. The award recipients were: Scott Henderson, director of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission; David Goad, deputy director of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission; Sam Hamilton, Southeast regional director for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; and Jon Andrew, regional chief of refuges for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The evening before, at a reception hosted by David and Terri Snowden of Little Rock, several members of the board of trustees for the Conservancy in Arkansas were presented "Ivory-billed Woodpecker Major Donor" awards for supporting conservation work in the Big Woods of Arkansas. Those receiving the awards were:

* Fred Berry of Yellville, Ark.

* Hank Browne of DeValls Bluff, Ark.

* John Chamberlin of Little Rock, Ark.

* John Cooper III of Rogers, Ark.

* Elaine Deming of El Dorado, Ark.

* Ben Hussman of Little Rock, Ark.

* Julia Peck Mobley of Texarkana, Ark.

* Mark Simmons of Siloam Springs, Ark.

* David Snowden Jr. of Little Rock, Ark.

Mike and Cathy Mayton and Mackie Hamilton, trustees for the Stella Boyle Smith Foundation, also received an "Ivory-billed Woodpecker Major Donor" award during the same presentation.

Without the hard work and/or major donations of the above people, I think it's possible that there might not be any Ivory-bills in Arkansas today.

"End of the season wrap up" May 20

An excerpt from this link:

At 11:00 [May 20, in Clarendon, Ark] the Big Woods Conservation Partnership, including Cornell University, will give an end of the season wrap up on the 2005-2006 search for the Ivory-billed Woodpecker. Don't miss the update on our fine feathered friend!

"Marketing-savvy Southerners"

Applauded here.

Are we each entitled to our own set of facts?

Here is an extraordinary TEXBIRDS post. An excerpt (the bold font and italics are mine):

Dear Ivory-billed enthusiast,

Over the last year, many of you have corresponded with me regarding searching for the Ivory-billed Woodpecker in Texas. The search efforts planned by me and HAS have been hampered by many things most notably Hurricane Rita. Since the GCBO has received a substantial grant for this effort we are turning over all out volunteers and information to John and the GCBO. If you had contacted me in the past, interested in searching I strongly encourage you to attend this meeting and contact John.

If you want to talk to me about HAS efforts or Ivory-bills, I'll be at the meeting and I think any one serious about searching should too.

And for the record, I believe more strongly than ever that not only are the reports from Arkansas valid in spite of nay sayers, I am sure there are even more birds in Texas and I believe that John and his volunteers will prove that to the world.

Texas Ivory-bills are fact not fiction.


Fred Collins
Chair Houston Audubon Society Citizen Science Committee

Ivory-bills in Minnesota?

While birding in central Minnesota last month, I actually heard what some would describe as the distinctive double-knock of an Ivory-bill!

A couple of weeks before that, I saw this unique woodpecker work only about 60 miles from the spot where I heard the distinctive double-rap.



A few months before that, I actually heard some distant, unique kent-like calls within 80 miles of the spot where the woodpecker work was found! I couldn't verify the source of these calls.

Considered individually, the pieces of evidence above likely aren't enough to convince some of the most hardened skeptics. But for the rest of us, this growing body of evidence is pretty compelling, am I right?

(I suppose I should mention that immediately after hearing the distinctive double-rap, I walked towards the sound and saw a Northern Flicker pounding on a dead branch. I guess I should add that Pileated Woodpeckers are regularly seen in the area where the woodpecker work was found. I reckon I should disclose that Red-Breasted Nuthatches are regularly seen in the area where the distant kent-like calls were heard).

"Keeping the public enthusiastic"

I very strongly disagree with this BirdForum post:

I think a point that needs to be made, is that the search for the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker is providing direct benefit via habitat preservation to several species of neotropical migrant songbirds. Warblers such as Hooded, Prothonotary, and Cerulean in particular use the same habitat as the Ivory-Billed, and have undergone dramatic declines in the past several years. Keeping the public enthusiastic about the search will no doubt preserve more habitat, and perhaps reverse the decline of these neotropical migrants. That, to me, would be a success story even if the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker was found to no longer exist, and would turn a possible conservation tragedy to a conservation victory.

I think it's bad policy to intentionally deceive the public, and I doubt that most of us will eventually view this whole sorry saga as a "conservation victory".

More on head-mounted cams

It seems that the folks at BirdForum (post 1, post 2, post 3) are seriously considering the use of head-mounted cameras for Ivory-bill searches.

With appropriate face paint, ghillie suit, and head-mounted camera, I'd think you'd be unstoppable at finally documenting the Ivory-bills just off Highway 17 near Brinkley.

Comments from Jerome Jackson

Posted here. One snippet:

We went into the Pearl River Swamp with the generous help and company of Mike Collins. The area was simply devastated by Hurricane Katrina... most large trees are on the ground. We kayaked up the Pearl River and into the swamp and I saw nothing that looked very promising, although habitat might be better in a few pockets deeper in.... not to say that they couldn't have been there or that they might not still be hanging on and trying to survive... but I'm not optimistic.

The bottom line is that we simply don't know and that the odds of there being Ivory-bills anywhere are rapidly fading as more and better search efforts come up empty-handed.

In praise of Cornell's science?!

I respectfully disagree with just about everything in the 23-minute lies.com podcast available here.

1. The podcaster (John Callender) seems to think that (according to sound spectrum analysis) some recorded Arkansas kent-like calls are a good match for real (recorded 1935) Ivory-bill calls.

That's just not true. Check out the two spectogram pictures available here. Do those two spectograms look like a good match to you?

Since this mismatch was a big problem, Cornell "degraded" the original calls by broadcasting them through foliage at 145 meters, then re-recording them. Of course, if you degrade the "target" evidence sufficiently, you can always find field evidence that appears to match. It's not unlike claiming that your video (of a Pileated and branch stub) match highly-degraded video of Ivory-bill models.

2. Callender seems to agree that Cornell's stiff-winged models are seriously flawed, but then suggests that Sibley should create models with wings that do move in a lifelike manner!

3. Callender still seems impressed by Cornell's "wingbeat frequency" argument (if you're a Cornell grad, this argument in particular should make you cringe).

For one thing, Cornell's claim about the Luneau bird's wingbeat frequency is clearly bogus.

For another thing, Cornell has a single data point for the wingbeat frequency of a fleeing Ivory-bill, and that claim may also be bogus.

The 1935 wingbeats (analyzed by Cornell here) may not be the wingbeats of a fleeing Ivory-bill. The recorded sounds may have been made by an agitated Ivory-bill fluttering near the nest hole.

Listen to the wingbeats here (WAV format). Why do the wingbeats stop abruptly? Note that the eighth wingbeat is still fairly loud, and although the recording continues, no further wingbeats are heard. If the bird was really fleeing, why don't we hear (and why doesn't the spectrogram show) wingbeats 9, 10, etc?