Double-knocky audio on the Science Friday website

You can listen to a double-knocky thing here on Science Friday's website.

Above the audio icon, it says:

Listen to the knock of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker:

But did an IBWO really produce that particular double-knocky?

Below the icon, in smaller print, it says:

Credit: Sound derived from a search for ivory-billed woodpeckers in the Florida panhandle, spearheaded by biologists at Auburn University in Alabama and the University of Windsor in Canada.

"I'm confident that we will succeed"

Check out this Birder's World article by Geoff Hill.

A book by Hill called "Ivorybill Hunters: The Search for Proof in a Flooded Wilderness" is due out early in 2007.

A related Birdchaser blog post is here.

Odd crows

Here.

Lanzone's alleged sighting

This 12/22/06 comment caught my eye (the bold font is mine):

I recently talked to Mike Lanzone from the Carnegie Museum’s Powdermill facility about his sighting during the original, covert season of Cornell-led searching, and why they weren’t able to find any the following year. He felt that the original sightings in the Cache River NWR may have all been of the same bird, dispersing from a source population in the White River NWR, and that the Cornell team erred by putting too many searchers back in Cache last year and not enough in White River. Be that as it may, Mike is one of the best birders in the country, and was quite matter-of-fact about his own sighting of an IB landing on the trunk of a tree some 65 feet away, pulling out a grub, then flying off.

There’s more backstory to all this than I am willing to put into print, but suffice it to say that the most prominent doubters have axes to grind, and that Cornell may have made some blunders. The IB is a reality.

1. I thought it odd that the sighting described above wasn't mentioned in "The Grail Bird", and it also didn't make Cornell's list of seven "robust" sightings (considering that Jim Fitzpatrick's 100-meter, naked-eye, 98.5%-confident flyby made the cut).

As is customary, Lanzone's sighting seems to have been significantly embellished over time. Here are some excerpts from a 4/30/05 article on Lanzone:

After realizing he had just seen an ivory-billed woodpecker thought to have vanished from the Earth 60 years ago, Westmoreland County ornithologist Mike Lanzone burst into tears.
...
As he floated past a giant cypress tree, he caught a flash of white out of the corner of his eye.

"The bird flew off a stump after it saw me and flew from left to right through the woods in front of me," Lanzone said. "I got a good look at it for three to four seconds. I knew it was an ivory-billed woodpecker.

"I've observed birds for 20 years. Everything about it -- the way it flew, the size of it, where the white was on the wings -- I knew it was it."
...
Scientists hope as many as 30 of the birds might be living in the area.

2. It's absolutely ridiculous to suggest that Cornell didn't deploy enough searchers in the White River area last season.

According to Cornell's recent report on the '05-'06 season (page 15), over 27,000 person hours were spent searching in that area (and another 8400 in the Bayou de View area).

3. Note that Lanzone was evidently still publicly selling his alleged sighting as recently as last month.

Jerome Jackson on WGCU radio

Now available here.

Jackson talks for 9+ minutes about the IBWO, starting at about the one minute mark. The show lasts about 54 minutes (I haven't listened to the whole thing).

"...this is a paper that stands above the rest..."

Even if you've previously seen this April 2005 video of Dr. Katrina Kelner (editor at Science Magazine), you should watch it again.

The video contains says some pretty remarkable quotes.

"Birders hunt elusive wonder"

Here.

As usual, the IBWO is described in terms that observers of real IBWOs would find very puzzling.

Elusive? A distinctive single or double rap? A tiny, shrill, trumpeting call? Loner birds?

We're also now told that the Congaree Swamp, at 26,000 acres, is "maybe the largest expanse of ivory-billed woodpecker country still intact in the United States". But aren't we supposed to also believe that the Arkansas Big Woods search area is 550,000 acres of IBWO country??

"Jim Fitzpatrick IBWO talk"

I just found this September '06 report on a Jim Fitzpatrick IBWO talk.

"Birding world at odds over sighting's authenticity"

Excerpt from a short article here:

Like it or not, the birding world has undergone a split, a crevice that will continue to widen until the believers and nonbelievers come to a conclusion as to the Lord God Bird's existence.

I disagree. I think the split actually peaked some time ago, and is slowly narrowing as all searches everywhere continue to come up empty.

There will always be zealots that believe in Bigfoot and/or IBWO. For everyone else, the bleak truth is relentlessly settling in.

It will be fascinating to see how long institutions like Cornell/USFWS/TNC will side with what the public will increasingly regard as the lunatic fringe.

USFWS Questions and Answers

Now available here (PDF).

Here's one stunningly clueless sentence:

The Service and its conservation partners consider most persuasive, among a number of reasons, the failure of all known videos showing pileated woodpeckers in flight to even come close to matching the characteristics present on the bird in the Luneau video in rejecting this alternative explanation.

An award for "The Grail Bird"

The Outdoor Writers Association of America has given Gallagher's "The Grail Bird" an "Excellence in Craft" award.

An excerpt from this page:

Book Contest
Sponsored by OWAA
...
First: "The Grail Bird" By Tim Gallagher. The discovery of the ivory-billed woodpecker, thought to be extinct for more than 60 years, makes for an exciting tale of the swamps. The history of the bird and what happened to its habitat throughout the swamps and bottoms of the southeast was compelling reading.
...

The OWAA Creed is here:

I believe in the profession of outdoor reporting as a public trust to report that which is true. Accuracy, fairness and clarity in words and photographs are a fundamental part of my profession.

I will present to my audience only that which I can present ethically. My financial return will not influence my judgment, nor will I evade my personal responsibility to search for facts. I believe in honest representation and conscientious performance and I will not stoop to plagiarism.

I believe the trust that is imposed on me is subject to justification in my own heart and mind, and that the true test of my work is the measure of its public service.