Hey Sidewinder

I saw your Birdforum post here.

1. Note that "those claiming PIWO and other woodpecker species make double-knocks" now includes Cornell (supporting link here).

2. More double-knocky background reading is available here and here.

3. Please also note this paragraph from Cornell's '05-'06 final report:

Ducks—During this past field season, we have learned that under certain circumstances duck wings can produce a double popping sound similar in timing to the double knocks of Campephilus woodpeckers. The mechanism by which ducks produce these sounds is unclear. We suspect that these pops are somehow mechanically produced by the ducks’ flapping wings, rather than being vocally produced. We hypothesize that a double knock from a nearby woodpecker would be distinguishable from a duck-generated double pop by a loud, resonant, “woody” quality. However, many of the double knocks that we have detected sound more distant and lack an unmistakable woody sound, making exclusion of ducks difficult in those cases. Based on the presence of duck vocalization and/or “wing-whirring” we have exculded 57 double-knock-like sounds from future IBWO analyses.

More bad news for the USFWS

I think it's fascinating that the USFWS (and its conservation partners) are still publicly sticking by the Luneau video, even as some of the most extreme BirdForum believers are abandoning it.

By "extreme", I mean people that find the Fishcrow video quite convincing.

Here are a couple of examples:
Birdforum posting 1
Birdforum posting 2

Jackson to speak in Germany (March 31)

Some details.

"I was already so interested in the area"

In this article on Tim Gallagher, his displays his strong "believer" mindset when following up Sparling's Arkansas report.

One excerpt:

And, this man from southern Louisiana did not want to come forward. He wanted to remain anonymous. He didn’t want to be bothered by people. But he had these pictures, and Lowry believed him. This was a big controversy, and for years people have talked about these mystery pictures. And I did a lot of detective work and tracked down the man, and I interviewed him. He was a fascinating character and totally believable. I mean he was out with his hunting dog, and he had been seeing these birds. First he told the high school biology teacher, who told him to tell George Lowry. George even came out a few times, and saw where the the birds had been building roost holes in the trees. It looked like they were going to nest, possibly. And, so, once again, this had a chilling effect. Everyone thought it was a hoax. But, I totally believed that man. I went out to the area, and it looked good.

Then there was Mary Scott, a birder from California. She now lives in Arizona. She had a sighting in Arkansas, just 11 months earlier than Gene Sparling’s sighting in January of 2004. Her description was perfect, by the way, because she was actually an ivory-bill searcher. And she told me about it. And this area, in the White River Refuge, was excellent. I found the kinds of tree scalings that are typical of the Ivory-bill, and I was really excited.

So, when I went home, and I heard about Gene Sparling’s sighting a couple of weeks later, I was already so interested in the area. And this was less than 50 miles from where she’d seen her bird. That really made a big difference. So we went down there and saw the bird.

Another reason we found this, I secretly suspect, is that these birds are on the increase...

Odd things on trees

Here.

Harrison, Gallagher, and Mary Scott too

Cyberthrush has the scoop on Bobby Harrison's upcoming "Fundraising Inaugural Gala" (formerly known as "Inaugural Celebration Gala").

Not so independent

In November 2005, this press release ("Ivory-Billed Woodpecker Record Accepted") was issued. (I raised some related questions here).

Note this sentence from the above press release:

At least four of the five committee members must vote for acceptance before the sightings become part of the official record.

Last June, we found out that the vote was 4-1, with Mike Mlodinow dissenting. Mike identified these five people as the Arkansas Bird Records Committee:

Doug James
Max Parker
Chris Kellner
Kenny Nichols
Mike Mlodinow

Note that Kenny Nichols is also listed under "Part-time Ivory-bill Search Crew" on the Nature Conservancy site here.

I'm not suggesting any wrongdoing by Nichols, but I am suggesting that a part-time member of the Cornell search crew might be hard-pressed to offer a truly independent evaluation of their evidence. Independent evaluations by expert birders tend to be more along these (PDF) lines.

Note that Nichols' name is not mentioned by Cornell anywhere on this "Meet the 2004-05 Search Team" page.

''I'm one of those people who want to believe the thing exists''

Thanks to the alert reader who just emailed me this link to a Miami Herald article entitled "Chasing the elusive Skunk Ape" (free registration may be required).

"Size matters?"

More from The Birdchaser (Rob Fergus) here.

He's also making some good points in his comment section here.

This link contains a bit of background information:

Rob Fergus is the National Audubon Society’s Senior Scientist for Urban Bird Conservation.

Arkansas duck hunters still skeptical

I hadn't visited the Arkansas Refuge Forums in a very long time, but a recent check showed that believers there are scarce to nonexistent.

Here's one thread from last summer.

These duck hunters understand that if you paddle ten minutes from the boat launch, you're not going to find yourself in a "remote" area. They also understand that a population of large, conspicuous woodpeckers cannot avoid photographers for 60+ years by hiding behind trees.

Tim Gallagher WSIU radio interview

The interview was evidently aired a couple of times in the last week, and will be broadcast once more on January 5.

For more details, you can cut/paste this link into your browser (I can't seem to make this particular link "clickable"):
http://www.wsiu.org/highlights05/051018infocus/e57.shtml

"Corridor of Hope" now MIA?

Last April, I put up this post about an ambitious "Corridor of Hope" web page (with logo) on the Arkansas Game and Fish site.

Without explanation, that page appears to have been removed recently.

Here is the Google cache for the page as of 12/12/06.

Review of Geoff Hill's upcoming book

...now available on Amazon here.

An excerpt (the bold font is mine):

...But the subsequent failure of a massive search to relocate Ivorybills in Arkansas made hope for the species' revival short-lived. Here, noted ornithologist Geoffrey Hill tells the story of how he and two of his colleagues stumbled upon what may be a breeding population of Ivory-billed Woodpeckers in the swamps of northern Florida. He relates their laborious attempts to document irrefutable evidence for the existence of this shy, elusive bird following the failure of a much larger research team to definitively prove the bird's existence. Hill tells of his travails both in and out of the vast swamp wilderness, pulling back the curtain to reveal the little-seen political maneuvering that is part of all modern science. He explains how he and his group decided who to exclude or include as their findings came in, and why they felt the need to keep their search a secret. Hill returns repeatedly to how expectations can guide observations, and how tempting it is to oversell evidence in the face of the struggle between an overwhelming desire to find the bird and the need to retain integrity and objectivity.
Written like a good detective story, Ivorybill Hunters also delves into the science behind the rediscovery of a species, explaining how professional ornithologists follow up on a sight record of a rare bird, and how this differs from the public's perception of how scientists actually work...