Yet another disputed photo

An emailer writes:

This is obviously just meant to be a cute story but it has obvious IBWO parallels.

Update--The same emailer now writes:

Wanted you to know that the demented people at fark.com had some fun with this angel story at this link, and perhaps the most relevant ornithological link from that site is here.

I am just grateful the Ruby-throated Hummingbird is not thought to be extinct.

Update from Geoff Hill

Here.

Not very courageous

An excerpt from the ABA Checklist Committee's 2006 annual report here (PDF format; 374k):

Future CLC Votes
Within the next 12–18 months, the CLC anticipates voting on adding the following species to the ABA Checklist: Greylag Goose and Gray Heron from Newfoundland, Parkinson’s Petrel from California (Stallcup and Preston 2006), Intermediate Egret from Alaska, and European Turtle-Dove from Massachusetts (probably along with a re-evaluation of the Florida record), once these records have completed local committee review. We have not yet decided whether to vote on the Ivory-billed Woodpecker reports from the Southeast, which could result in a change to the current Code 6 status of this species. The documentation provided for the Arkansas woodpecker or woodpeckers (Fitzpatrick et al. 2005, 2006; Rosenberg et al. 2005) has been questioned (e.g., Jackson 2006, Sibley et al. 2006), and these observations have polarized the birding community like perhaps no other event in our history. Other claims of recent Ivory-billed Woodpecker persistence in Arkansas , Florida , and Louisiana have not been professionally evaluated and are unlikely to be reviewed by the CLC. To avoid further polarization among the ABA membership, the CLC may wait until additional evidence is presented that might bear on the hypothesis that the Ivory-billed Woodpecker occurs in the ABA Area.

1. I think it's interesting that they actually provided links to the websites of Mary Scott, That Magic Guy, and Fishcrow.

2. Note what ABA Checklist Committee chairman Bill Pranty wrote in February 2006 in the comment section here:

...Given that at this moment, the Cornell search team is in its third season looking for Ivory-billeds, the ABA CLC has decided to wait until the end of this season to vote on the matter, in the hopes that additional proof can be gathered to support the claim that the Ivory-billed Woodpecker survives...

3. Note also the quote from ABA Checklist Committee member Jon Dunn here:

"I've never seen such awful documentation on any record. I just look at the video and say, `God, it's hopeless.' It's hard for the human being, in such high-profile cases, to just relax and say, `Well, maybe we made a mistake.'"

Some results of the Floyd Hayes IBWO survey

Here.

"the hands of the eyes that had seen the vision"

An odd excerpt from this old AP article:

"I started a pencil sketch," Chandler said of setting out last year to paint the bird. "Then Bobby would be gone sometimes two to three weeks out there doing this search in the swamps. He would come back and he would tell me to change certain things about it.

"He kept telling me it's not like any other bird in the forest. He said it almost has a cartoonish look to it. And the colors are so vibrant on the bird — the black and white and the crest, the red, is very, very vibrant," Chandler said.

"He would come back and he would tell me I needed to make the wings longer, more white on the wings and he would tell me the length of the tail needed to be longer," Chandler said. "It's a very sleek bird. It almost has the appearance that only the wing tips are moving (when it flies) because it is a very powered flight, very, very direct."

Another mis-ID?

Last week, an emailer wrote:

This was all over the news today (LA Times, Seattle Times...) (for some reason it was today, not a few weeks ago when it happened). I dug up the original news story, and low-and-behold, if the photo printed with the story is the actual photo, it isn't a Condor.

I don't want people to pick on the little kid, but who the heck told him it was a Condor (it looks like a Great-horned, from what I can see). I think the slippery slope of the shoddy ID of the IBWO is contagious.

The emailer later emphasized "I hope people are nice to the kid", and I agree.