"No real evidence of ivory-bill in Arkansas"

Here is a short UPI article.

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette story

Here (registration may be required).

"Not enough oxygen in the room"

Check out this article by John Crewdson of the Chicago Tribune.

Update: As a commenter pointed out, check out the quotes at the end of this version of Crewdson's article (registration may be required).

AP story

Here.

An excerpt:

Search teams exploring an Arkansas swamp for better evidence of the ivory-billed woodpecker said Thursday they had no new confirmation of the bird's existence, and wildlife managers said there was no longer a reason to limit public access to the region.

"Certainly we're somewhat disappointed," said Ron Rohrbaugh of the Cornell University Lab of Ornithology in Ithaca, N.Y. "We've had enough of these tantalizing sounds and we still have a lot of hope that there might be a pair, especially in the White River area."

"Teasing glimpses and tantalizing sounds"

It's now official.

Past predictions are here.

Ivory-bill news phone conference today (Thu 5/18/06)

According to Birdchick.

Bobby Harrison, chosen one

...on no less than five separate occasions, or so it says here.

An excerpt:

''He [Sparling] said the bird moved real nervous,'' recalls Harrison, giving a second-hand account of Sparling's encounter. ''He said, 'It just looked really cartoonish,' and as soon as he said that I knew he saw it. He was using his own words but his words matched the textbook description of the ivory-billed woodpecker.''

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By the way, I heard a double-knocky thing today while birding in Minnesota. I think the source was a distant truck driving over a bump in the road.

Gone birdin'

I plan to be "in the field" for quite a bit of the next two weeks.

Posting will likely be sporadic. Comment moderation may be slow, and may sometimes be done by someone other than me...

Luneau speaks

Here.

An excerpt:

Pileateds are more common and have been the subject of thousands of erroneous ivory-billed "sightings." But Luneau and a handful of others who saw the Arkansas bird insist it had the distinct markings of an ivory-billed.

Meanwhile, another sighting in another location also is causing a stir. The U.S. Naval Research Laboratory in Stennis, Miss., near the Pearl River, announced in April that one of its researcher Mike Collins had photographed an ivory-billed.

Prior to the Arkansas announcement, some researchers believed the Pearl had yielded the most conclusive evidence the ivory-billed might still exist.

Lots of people want to believe, one reason Luneau and other searchers are in demand at bird festivals around the country.

He still teaches full time but keeps three cameras in the woods and goes out once a week to collect images they've stored.

The Big Woods Partnership is still searching for more definitive proof. A report on this past winter's search activities will be released later this month at the Big Woods Birding Festival in Arkansas. "One thing we've learned," Luneau said, "is that they're extremely hard to find."

"Now, I foresee more motels, restaurants"

I predict that this article (dated 5/14/06) will fail to win a Pulitzer Prize.

Fading hopes at the Pioneer Press

The Minneapolis-St Paul Pioneer Press mentions the purported Ivory-bill rediscovery in this lukewarm paragraph today:

He [Jim Fitzpatrick] also is one of a handful of people who have reported seeing an ivory-billed woodpecker, a bird thought extinct until Fitzpatrick and others reported sightings in Arkansas in 2004. However, there have been no recent sightings and the nation's best-known birder, David Sibley, has disputed the identification.

Compare that paragraph with this euphoric article from April 2005.