Jackson to speak on IBWO

An excerpt from this MISSBIRDS posting:

Subject: Jerry Jackson : Ivory-billed Woodpeckers

Jerry Jackson will be speaking at the Millsaps College Art and Letters Series on Thursday, November 16, 2006, 7:30 p.m. at Ford Academic Complex Recital Hall (Turn on Park Ave. off North State St., go toward end of street and turn right to park under bldg., take elevator under bldg. to second floor)

There will be a Special $8 rate for all Auduboners in the state which includes all chapters, Audubon MS, and all MOS members. Just tell the folks at the admissions that you are a members of one of these groups to get the reduced rate.

General adm. Is $10, $5 any student with ID. For More info: (601) 974-1043 or Luran.buchanan AT millsaps.edu

"'Extinct' woodpecker found alive in Norfolk"

Here.

"Woodpecker may turn airport plan to sawdust"

Here.

Update: Another related article is here.

Article on false visual memories

Here.

As a hypothetical example, let's say you've recently been informed that the Ivory-bill still survives. Desperately wanting to see one for yourself, you head out to some good-looking habitat somewhere in the Southeast. You hear some intriguing knocking, and sometime later get a glimpse like Clip 6 here (QuickTime).

Given that one-time, real-time glimpse, can you reliably "remember" the exact location of white and black on the upper and lower surfaces of both wings? If you owned a PhD in ornithology, would it be very helpful in this situation?

More from WorldTwitch

Here.

Lean times at the Brinkley Ivory-bill store?

Here.

Steve N. G. Howell on the Luneau video

An emailer writes (the bold font is mine):

A book review by Steve N. G. Howell in the latest Western Birds (2006, Vol. 37, No.2, p. 118) contains the following paragraph:

"Of course, if the world were perfect we humans wouldn't be here. So what if this book, like all the NGS field guides, was pushed out under unreasonable deadlines? It's all about marketing. After all, if thousands of people can be shown a few seconds of blurry video of a Pileated Woodpecker and be convinced that it's an Ivory-billed Woodpecker, then the sky's the limit. Image rules over content......"

Pre-Sparling Arkansas Ivory-bill hysteria

It's a little-discussed fact that the Arkansas Ivory-bill hysteria predated Gene Sparling's alleged sighting in February 2004.

1. David Luneau led a search in the White River area in early 2003--this failed attempt included the use of remote cameras.

2. In the summer of 2003, Cornell used ARUs in a failed attempt to locate Ivory-bills in the White River area. Mary Scott writes:

I informed local wildlife officials in Arkansas of my [March 2003] sighting. I talked with Richard Hines, the refuge biologist at White River, and with the forester there. It was the first time the prospect of ivorybills in their midst had been raised. I talked with them about the specific feeding habits of the birds, and how they could enhance the chances for the birds through appropriate forest management. I then contacted Chris Tessaglia-Hymes at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and told him of my experience. Chris and I had corresponded about the search over the years, and I trusted him. It is because of Chris that the Cornell Lab of Ornithology got the inside track on the Ivorybill. Chris wasn't a bigwig at Cornell, and his work in the Bioacoustics Program didn't put him in the epicenter of possible interest, so Chris suggested that I contact Tim Gallagher with my sighting. I did so. It was interesting that Tim had been trying to contact me for some time, but until Chris's advice, he seemed just one of many who wanted to chat about their experiences, and mine. Until my sighting in Arkansas, I had nothing to say that was not on my website. So, I called Tim, who to his credit was able to get past my unsavory reputation and listen to the details of my sighting. It sparked his interest in Arkansas as a place to search. I put him in touch with Bob Russell as well, and Bob's report did generate serious interest in the White River region. The Cornell team deployed automatic recording units at the White River, but not until August, well past the time period when vocalizations would be more prominent in the breeding season. The results were first called "inconclusive", but in January of 2005, the Cornell ARUs placed within one mile of the location of my sighting at the White River picked up the first known ivorybill calls (a series of short toots) recorded since 1935. Of course, our scientist friends are still struggling to make the case for the calls ~ doing spectrographic analysis to make sure the calls weren't made by a mimic such as the blue jay.

3. Then there are the BirdForum claims (circa Sept 2005) of Wanda Ellis ("fishing4clues"). An excerpt from one of her posts (the bold font is mine):

This sighting occured in aug.1999 I told the wildlife officers in decof 1999 and met Gene Sparling the first time in Jan 2000. Then when the press is called in 2005 they released that Gene found the bird within 1/2 mile from where I saw it you be the judge. Oh and by the way....Marjon limmertink (probably spelled his name wrong too.) Stated that he had no doubt it was me that started Gene in looking for the bird. He actually said thank you for the help in finding the bird. He seemed to know of me and he has the hand written version of the sighting I gave it to him to give to Ron because he wanted it in writing.

Another interesting post is here. An excerpt (the bold font is mine):

May be then you'll relize It's not somewhere you want to just to kayak in. Look other than what I told him he [Sparling] had no previous reason to even be in that area. He belived what I said enough to keep looking you said so yourself that he kept coming back over and over and over etc...I just wanted him to say thank you and he did but not PUBLICALLY which that is what I deserve. Put yourself in my position would you be happy?

In this article, Wanda Ellis is identified as an employee of Penny Childs (of Ivory-billed Woodpecker hairstyle fame).

An excerpt from this Outside article:

"I was familiar with the legend of the ivorybill," says Sparling, who speaks with a richly seasoned raconteurial drawl. "As a young man, I fantasized at great length of traveling to the Big Thicket, in Texas, finding a lost colony of ivorybills, and photographing them."

Remember, Sparling has been consistently painted as a mere "kayaker" who stumbled onto an Ivory-bill, not as someone who was out looking for Ivory-bills.

4. Note that this timeline doesn't reflect any of the information in points 1-3 above.

Frank Gill backs away

...according to The Birdchaser here:

Interestingly, there is a questionmark next to the rediscovery year in the table of rediscovered birds thought to be extinct for at least 50 years.

Gill sounded completedly convinced in this April '05 article (the bold font is mine):

Frank Gill, senior ornithologist at the Audubon Society, said the discovery “is kind of like finding Elvis.”

“There have been lots and lots of reports and many of them have been off but others have been possible,” Gill added. “But this time we got it.”

He's everywhere!

From the University of Florida News here:

Florida Museum Ornithology Curator David Steadman will lecture on some of the realities and myths about our ever-changing bird populations, including the ivory-bill, when he presents “Common, Rare, Endangered and Extinct Birds I Have Known and Loved” from 2:30 to 3:30 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 22. The lecture is part of the Florida Museum’s Science Sunday series.

The series continues from 2:30 to 3:30 p.m. Nov. 12 as award-winning nature photographer Bobby Harrison presents “Obsessed with the Ivory-billed Woodpecker.” Learn about the story of the ivory-bill’s near demise, miraculous resurrection and his first-hand account of the rediscovery of the Holy Grail bird. A book signing of Harrison’s “To Find an Ivory-billed Woodpecker” will follow. Harrison has been involved with the ivory-bill research project in eastern Arkansas since he and Tim Gallagher, editor of Living Bird magazine, reported their sighting Feb. 27, 2004.

Is anyone else getting the impression that Harrison is still at full-throttle in publicly selling the Arkansas Ivory-bill tale, while the rest of Fitz et al seems to be easing off the gas?

IBWO on Daily Kos!

Check out the comment thread here.

"A bird that lives no more"

An excerpt from this 1997 article by Laura Erickson (the bold font is mine):

My most vivid impression of Peterson runs to a warmer clime. One of the journeys that earned him the distinguished Explorer Medal from the Explorer's Club was into deep, mosquito-infested, primeval forests of Louisiana where, in 1941, he beheld an ivory-billed woodpecker, one of the last of its kind, a bird not included in his first field guide because it was already feared extinct. How his eyes must have savored the boldly-patterned plumage! How his sensitive eardrums must have vibrated to its call, which he described as "a single loud tooting note constantly uttered as the bird forages about." His brain waves and heart beat must have thrilled at the encounter.

We will never know the moment, the date, or even the decade in which the last ivory-billed woodpecker died. It has been officially declared extinct, yet for many years continued to live in the senses and memory of Roger Tory Peterson. With his passing, we have lost one of the last human links to this magnificent creature. Soon everyone on earth who has ever seen or heard a living ivory-billed woodpecker will be gone, rendering it not only extinct but forever lost to human experience. Peterson shared his magical experience with all of us in the form of his field guide painting, forever imbued with the living spirit of a bird that lives no more.

Harrison to speak Nov 4

From this Georgia Birders Online post:

Call of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker –
Presentation on NOVEMBER 4, 2006 at 4:30 p.m.
For years we have read about the controversy of whether the Ivory-billed Woodpecker has been sighted or not. The Hilton Head Audubon Society, in conjunction with Sun City Bird Club and Coastal Discovery Museum, has invited Bobby Harrison to come speak in their region about the Ivory-billed Woodpecker. The presentation is on Saturday, November 4, 2006 at 4:30 p.m. at Bluffton High School, located on 12 H. E. McCracken Circle in Bluffton, South Carolina. Bobby Harrison, a professional photographer and college professor, is one of the two people credited in 2004 with sighting the Ivory-billed. This sighting, the first time since 1944 that two qualified observers had positively identified an ivory-billed woodpecker in the US, led to the largest search ever launched to find a rare bird.

During the lecture, Mr. Harrison addresses the history of the ivory-billed, it’s near demise, the rediscovery, the current controversy and an update on the current search effort. He will also show the Luneau video and a video Mr. Harrison shot in September of 04, which has not been published. His presentation this past March in Columbia, SC was a sell out. Come and hear for yourself this story, which epitomizes the challenge to conservation in America.

1. When Harrison addresses the current controversy, I wonder if he'll again go with his old "sour grapes" defense?

2. Regarding Harrison's Sept '04 video, Tim Barksdale wrote this:

...I am NOT impressed with the footage of Bobby's and feel that bird one is CLEARLY a PILEATED in hs footage and a heron flying through in the second shot. NEVER NEVER will this POOR quality and terribly focused footage be of any value and if he is continuing to suggest otherwise He is being dishonest and of little value to the rest of us who are working dilegently to really acquire something of value.

Barksdale's view stands in stark contrast to Tim Gallagher's view (from page 232 of "The Grail Bird"; the bold font is mine):

Marc Dantzker set to work on Bobby's tape the minute Bobby arrived. There wasn't as much to work with as there had been with David's tape--this was the briefest glimpse imaginable. But after it was enlarged and slowed down, most people who saw it were convinced the bird in the video was an ivory-bill. In one of the last frames before it vanished from view, you could see a black body, black on the wings, with a large expanse of white. Then Fitz spotted something else interesting: the bird actually flew through the frame a second time, going from left to right across the bottom of the screen just thirty-three seconds later.

Bobby's video is far from being a high-quality, undeniable rendering of this bird. The best thing about it is that it shows conclusively that a decoy can lure in a passing ivory-bill. So now we had one more vital tool in the upcoming field season, set to begin in early December 2004.

I think it's important to note that Gallagher can evidently "see" Ivory-bill field marks in the crappiest of videos. Note Gallagher's astounding sentence about the Luneau video on page 224 of "The Grail Bird":

In the blown-up film, I could see what appeared to be a large bird with a black-crested head and a white bill peering out from behind a tupelo.

Update: Harrison is also speaking this week in Alabama. An excerpt from this article (the bold font is mine):

...Harrison said there are two images on the [Harrison] tape of that bird, which experts believe -- based on a frame-by-frame analysis -- is an ivory-billed woodpecker.

"I'll show the tape in Fairhope and people can make up their minds," Harrison said. "It's a big bird, but it's a much bigger swamp. It is amazing how big this bird is, yet can hide itself so well. It will always keep a tree between itself and you. It will always be on the opposite side of a tree from where you are. I think they are just wary."

"THE PSYCHOLOGY OF BIRD IDENTIFICATION"

From the description of David Sibley's upcoming workshop at the ABA convention in April (the bold font is mine):

Bird identification is the central challenge of birding, and we all strive to improve our skills and to identify more birds, more quickly and more accurately. Countless references and tools suggest that the birder who wants to avoid misidentifications should learn more about the fine points of plumage, molt, variation and subspecies, etc. But the fact is that most mistakes involve glitches in perception. No amount of preparation can prevent us from blurting out “Snowy Owl!” when the time is right and we see a white milk jug on the salt-marsh. Our brains, and the very short-cuts that we use successfully (most of the time) to identify birds, are also the source of most misidentifications. This workshop will focus on the psychological aspects of bird identification - how we subconsciously use pattern-recognition, expectations, suggestion, and other clues - and how those methods can lead us to misidentify birds with complete confidence.

Anniston Star editorial

An excerpt from this editorial (the bold font is mine):

Brian Rolek, one of the Auburn researchers, was the first to spot the bird. Later he was one of two people to spend months upon months in the swamps of the river, watching and waiting for the bird.

It paid off. One reason he was able to see the ivory-billed woodpecker on a number of occasions is because he almost never saw any humans or evidence of them.

A few reasons that I'm extremely skeptical of that last sentence:

1. Hill et al supposedly saw their first Ivory-bill within an hour of launching their boats.

2. On Hill's own website, we see this caption (about six pictures from the bottom, left side):

House boats, or more accurately floating houses, are a common sight on the river, used by locals as hunting and fishing camps.

3. The rumored search area is not very remote.

Kent-like calls on the Choctawhatchee!

Interesting postscript here:

P.S. (off-topic) On Monday, I was on my way to Panama City, FL for a meeting and I stopped at a boat landing on the Choctawhatchee River (they had some possible Ivory-bill evidence during the past year). The minute I got out of my car, I heard some calls that were rather unusual and frankly kent-like. I have to admit I got a little excited. There were 2 birds calling in front and one behind. Then......two Blue Jays flew out of the woods right where the birds had been calling and the excitement was over. Honestly, I hadn't heard Blue Jays making this type of call ever before.

List of extinct birds

Here.