IBWO or young deer vocalization?

Sonograms here.

I wouldn't be a bit surprised if some of Hill et al's kent-like calls were actually produced by deer "up to one year old".

"I have a good vibe about how things are going to go..."

Dan Mennill is interviewed on the CBC Radio "Quirks and Quarks" show here.

Mennill's segment (about 10 minutes, MP3 format, 5 Meg) is here.

After playing a kent-like call, Mennill actually makes this astonishing statement (at about the 7:20 mark): "There's no other animal that we're aware of living in the southern forests that could produce a sound like that".

Another failed Ivory-bill search on the Choctawhatchee

Here.

Break time

Starting around midday Friday, I plan to be away from all computers through Sunday evening.

If you have a particularly brilliant comment that can't wait until Monday, please submit it soon.

Dismantling Hill et al's audio "evidence"

This is like shooting fish in a barrel, since Hill et al's audio evidence is so very weak. A lot of this has already been covered in the comment section, but here goes:

1. On the Auburn IBWO website, we see this (the bold font is mine):

...Likewise, double knocks could be atypical drum patterns of Pileated Woodpeckers, but such pileated double knocks must be rare because there is no mention of such pileated double knocks in the literature, and no members of our search team have heard pileateds make such double knocks along the Choctawhatchee or anywhere else in the southern forests...

Wrong.

Check this out. Again, as noted here many times, double-knocks can also be traced to other woodpeckers, courting ducks, gunshots, wind in the trees, vehicles, etc etc.

2. An excerpt from Hill's paper:

Tanner (1942) describes the double knock as a “hard, double rap, BAM-bam, the second note sounding like an immediate echo of the first.” The timing of the putative double knocks that we recorded is consistent with this description of two raps in direct succession: the average delay from the start of the first knock to the start of the second knock was 0.115 ± 0.003 seconds (n = 99). In 45% of our putative double knocks, the first knock was louder than the second, matching Tanner’s description (Jackson 2002).

Excerpt from "The Grail Bird", page 40 (the bold font is mine):

This BAM-bam is the characteristic drum of a Campephilus woodpecker, a genus found through much of South and Central America, with the ivory-bill being the northernmost representative of the group. "The second part of the double rap is so quick," said Nancy, "it sounds like an echo of the first and is nowhere near as hard." The space between the two parts of the double rap is only about seventy-five milliseconds, which is so close that some people hear them as a single rap. But the separate parts are clear if you look at a sonogram (a visual representation of a sound showing its pitch and duration).

("Nancy" in the paragraph above is Nancy Tanner, who was married to the Ivory-bill expert Jim Tanner. Nancy Tanner heard real Ivory-bill double-knocks in the 1940s.)

From 11,000+ hours of ARU data, Hill et al cherry-picked the "best" 99 double-knockies that they could find. Even for those 99, the knocks are generally spaced much too far apart, and the relative amplitude of the two knocks is also generally wrong.

3. Regarding the recorded kent-like sounds, Hill et al admit there are lots of other sources:

Sounds that resemble Ivory-billed Woodpecker kent calls are produced by Red-breasted Nuthatches (Sitta canadensis), White-breasted Nuthatches (Sitta carolinensis), gray squirrels (Sciurus carolinensis), and Blue Jays (Cyanocitta cristata) (Jackson 2002, Tanner 1942), and may also be produced by Great Blue Herons (Ardea herodias) (R. Charif, pers. comm.).

The admission above is all well and good. But at this point, they try to eliminate these other sources by using ridiculous arguments like this:

Great Blue Herons are common along the Choctawhatchee River, but their occasionally kent-like calls could be distinguished because they were followed in sequence by repeats of their more common squawk-like calls.

Ok, so an isolated kent-like call is unlikely to be a Great Blue Heron, because of no surrounding context of convincing Great Blue Heron calls? But couldn't a nasty skeptic suggest that an isolated kent-like call is unlikely to be an Ivory-bill, because of no surrounding context of convincing Ivory-bill sounds (multiple Tanner-like double-raps, additional kent calls that actually match Ivory-bill recordings, loud wooden wing noise)?

Please also note that the duration of Hill et al's kent-like calls is far too long:

Putative kent calls that we recorded in Florida in 2006 (0.21±0.08 sec, n = 210) were slightly longer than calls recorded at the nest by Allen and Kellogg in Louisiana in 1935 (0.11±0.01 sec, n = 31).

Why is the word "slightly" in the above sentence?

4. Now let's consider the "clustering argument" beloved by some. I don't see any meaningful correlation whatsoever between the recorded kent-like calls and double-knockies.

See for yourself by checking out Figure S1 on page 4 of Appendix 1 here.

In the comment section here, Andrew R wrote:

After a quick look at the "appendix1.pdf" file that has the pretty blue and red double-knockies and kents I noticed a couple of things. First, the scales of the diagrams are not the same. The increments vary from 10 minutes to 1 hour. Even if they aren't close together temporally, they sure look close together when a larger scale is used. Nothing nasty about that, but it's easily misinterpreted at first glance.

From what I can gather from the graphs (too tired to read the data in the tables, and by "tired" I mean "buzzed") the closest kent and double-knocky pair is about 8 minutes apart - chart "D". And they were from different listening stations. (Is there a map somewhere of how the listening station were arranged? Saying they were 500 meters apart doesn't help much unless we know they were in a straight line.)

So, a kent and a knock were heard 8 minutes apart, maybe 1000 meters from each other, maybe more, maybe less. Where is the evidence that these were made by the same animal? If they were 10 seconds apart and from the same recording unit, you could make that argument. Oh, and I'm guessing the kent didn't really sound like the recording we have of an IBWO...

If Ivory-bills were actually present in the search area, it's a near certainty that Hill et al would have captured a definitive video within a week or two of their initial "sighting". No ARUs would have ever been deployed.

But leave that aside for a moment. Hill et al is suggesting that Ivory-bills were near their ARUs, day after day, yet were detected almost exclusively by isolated kent-like calls or isolated double-knockies. There's no mention of any ARU ever picking up any Ivory-bill wing noise. Did the Ivory-bills usually walk into ARU range, kent or double-knock a time or two, then silently walk out of ARU range?

More on expected sound combinations is here.

5. We're told that each of the seven ARUs was visited daily to change memory cards and batteries.

The ARUs keep picking up "Ivory-bill" sounds, day after day after day, but the person visiting all the ARUs never ever gets a decent look at a perched bird?!

6. As a wise person once said about Cornell's evidence: "There's no control for this experiment".

As a control, large amounts of ARU data could be collected at night, and also far away from the historic Ivory-bill range. It should be analyzed by people unaware of the time or place of recording. Under those conditions, I'm confident that a whole lot of "Ivory-bill" evidence would be found.

Bottom line: Hill et al's data is quite convincing proof that there were no Ivory-bills in their search area.

Overwhelming support from well-known skeptics

Laura Erickson writes:

It was amusing hearing the disparaging remarks several people, including well-known skeptics, were making about a "Minnesota blogger"--fortunately they said "he" wasn't me they were talking about!

Obviously, this was meant as a shot at me, and at least one fine thinker at Birdforum has interpreted it that way.

For the real story, start by looking at the list of public skeptics available here.

I've had personal communications (email and/or phone) with almost every one of the top eight people listed there. I've enjoyed extensive communications (15+ contacts) with several of them.

Their support has been overwhelming, including many lengthy, unsolicited contributions of opinion and information.

Here are a couple of email excerpts from well-known skeptics:

1. "...thank you for carrying the banner for so long. I think you’ve done a great job of presenting a reasonable and unwavering viewpoint, in the face of some seemingly unreasonable debate. Thank you."

2. "Since you've been following this story more closely (and more accurately) than anyone, I thought you might be interested in this item...But I see you already have plenty of solid material on your site.

I think you're going to come out of this looking like a brave person who has been vindicated. I salute your courage and your forthright approach to the issue."

Report on Hill/Mennill talk at Veracruz

Anonymous writes:

I was just at the talk by Hill and Menill, and have prepped a few notes for your interest and/or website. I am a slow typist (but fortunately a fast note taker) so have largely kept it simple. Statements in inverted commas are all quotes from the talk, unaltered and verbatim. Do with it what you will.

Basically they presented exactly the same info that is on their websites, but some of the context and quotes were interesting...

--------
Hill and Menill
Weds, October 4th, 2006 (1245-1345)
Ulua 5, World Trade Center, Veracruz, Mexico
“Evidence that Ivory-billed Woodpeckers persist on Florida”

Hill mainly spoke, for a little over 30 minutes, including a short segment by Menill on the microphone work

Hill describing 21st May 2005
“I had never looked for Ivory-billed Woodpeckers until the weekend we found them”
“We wanted to get out and kick around”
“Brian got a clear look at an Ivory-billed that day”

Observations
Described Tyler Hicks as someone who “leads bird tours and runs identification seminars” [is this true?] and later as an “expert in bird identification”.
“There are no puddle ducks in the forest”
Even in their 1 mile x 2 mile (500ha) study area, they were “totally overwhelmed” by the area they had to cover.
The observations were “mostly Brian searching on his own”
There are “two birds, and I would claim three birds”

Listening stations
“difficult to estimate how much area each microphone picks up”
They played seven of the 99 double-knock recordings, and six individual and two multiple kent calls, all of which are on the web,

Cavities
They measured 131 in the 500ha study area
“many are Pileated cavities, maybe most of them”
They have only got up to three of them so far, and found one of them to be three feet deep, and completely clean.

Bark adhesion
this is the “weakest evidence, but some people like this”
“bark scaling is actually on cavity trees often”

A variety of issues came up during a fairly lengthy Q&A session after the presentation, although all questions were quite innocuous. One questioner asked if the kent calls could be from Blue Jays, and Hill responded that he had personally never heard Blue Jays make such a call. He pointed out that Blue Jays do not occur at their site in winter, and that they have recordings of kent calls with no other Blue Jay calls for at least a month either side.

Hill described the evidence as “compelling” and “highly suggestive”. They recognized that they needed proof however, and emphasized that in capitals, literally. That proof would be a “definitive image” and Hill said that would be “our only focus until we get that”. They described an intensive search and covering the area with cameras, saying that [whatever was making the scaling and cavities] “we’ll get pictures of it for sure”.

When asked about amateur sightings in the area, Hill stated that “a lot of people don’t understand rural Florida”.

Regarding the abundance of Pileateds at the site, he said among those people who had been there, the “consensus was Pileated Woodpeckers aren’t particularly abundant”.

On the subject of the birds’ behaviour when seen, “they are shy…..not in a panic to get away from people”, and when seen “with very few exceptions, these things are flying away from us”.

On a question of comparing the Florida calls with CLO recordings, and the Kellogg recordings, Menill said that the “frequency characteristics match up well”, but then also said that they have found about “a 110 millisecond delay between the first and second knocks” which was “longer than any other Campephilus” and that they would continue to research this on Pale-billed Woodpeckers in Costa Rica.

Most of their funding will come from a private source, a billionaire by the name of M C Davis, who ahs a foundation that I didn’t quite catch the name of (Nagoosy?).

Some pictures

1. Some eyewitness sketches (showing multiple fieldmarks) are here.

Some strangely familiar wording is found here. Scroll to the bottom and check out the "reasons for all the failures".

2. On Birdforum, Docmartin finds an Ivory-bill on a grassy knoll in Dallas.

Update: it looks like Docmartin's post (above) has now been deleted.

Huh?

Check out this Wikipedia edit by user "Ithacagorges".

Regarding the Choctawhatchee "Ivory-bill" situation, it says:

Some speculate that the focus should be on protection of habitat rather than further intrusive studies.

Florida Search Q and A

Now available on Cornell's website here.

Lynx and IBWO

Mentioned here:

The Lynx proposal is another Greenie land grab. The Lynx is a vehicle, not a beneficiary. The Lynx is to northern States what the Ivory-billed Woodpecker is to Arkansas - a boondoggle for Tree-Hugger organizations to grab huge amounts of government money to buy huge acreages of land using the excuse that driving people away will benefit an obscure critter that doesn’t even live there. The proposed 18,000 square miles is just a start. Tree-Huggers plan to extend the Lynx reserve to an area approaching the size of Europe.

"This is more of the same"

Excerpt from this article:

“This is more of the same,” said [Mark] Robbins, ornithology collections manager at the University of Kansas Museum of Natural History.

No authoritative photographs or video prove the ivory-bill’s existence, he said. Most scientists want irrefutable proof.

“You can go to the Ozarks of Missouri or northern Minnesota and find big roost holes,” Robbins said. “The size of the holes is meaningless. It’s too bad that money keeps getting wasted and nothing comes of it.”

$150k requested for Cache River visitors center?

Excerpt from this article:

The Arkansas Department of Parks and Tourism is hoping for $ 150, 000 in the Interior and Environment spending bill to construct a visitors center in the Cache River National Wildlife Refuge. Last year’s discovery of the ivory-billed woodpecker there has piqued the interest of a lot of bird-watchers, and Joe David Rice, the state’s tourism director, wants to capitalize on that.

CBC interview with Dan Mennill

Here.

In my humble opinion, Mennill's segment contains a lot of pure delusion. It runs about 10 minutes, beginning at about the 19:35 mark.

Hill joining forces with Harrison and Fishcrow?

From the Tallahassee Democrat here:

Harrison has been in touch with Hill, who invited him to join the Auburn team's efforts to more completely document the ivory-billed woodpecker's presence in the Florida Panhandle. It's a mission Harrison gladly accepted.

Fishcrow writes on BirdForum here:

Geoff Hill = Team Player. For those who may be wondering what Geoff Hill is like, let me point out that he forwarded to me a report by a local that led to my sighting today. Some are involved in the search for ivorybills merely for their own glory. People like Geoff have more commendable motives. I wish there were more like him.

Incorrect dates listed for sound recordings?

On Hill's IBWO site, it says:

At present, our best tangible evidence for the presence of Ivory-billed Woodpeckers along the Choctawhatchee River is recordings of double knocks and kent calls.

It could then be argued that Table S3 in Appendix 1 of their paper is pretty critical, since it lists the dates and times of all their recorded putative kent calls and double-knocks.

If you take a look at that table, please see the last column on page 6. The last 23 entries are dated in the years 2007 through 2017.

So much for scientific caution

You should read this entire article (the bold font is mine).

Some excerpts:

As a 14-year Alabama resident, Hill said he desperately wanted to find an ivory-bill in his home state...
...
"After one weekend trip, we knew the bird was there," Hill said.

Like hunters who had located the territory of a trophy white-tailed deer or fishermen who had found the perfect ledge filled with big bass, Hill and his team kept their discovery quiet.
...
While working in total privacy, Hill and his team had 14 encounters with the ivory-bill in a year's time. That's one for about every 15 days of work, but still quite good for a team seeking such a rare specimen.
...
Hill said the 24-hour cameras are the ones most likely to get the historic shot -- the one that makes Auburn University synonymous with yet another majestic bird.

"I'd love to think that it would be some dramatic thing where a bird flies right in front of us and we get that perfect shot," Hill said. "But more than likely it will come from one of those thousands of photos shot by the automatic digitals."

One way or another, Hill is confident his team will get the shot it needs.

"This is not a belief that this bird is there," Hill said. "I know it. I've seen it. I believe it's just a matter of time before we'll be able to prove it."