An excerpt (the bold font is mine):
The big news happened on Christmas Eve Day. Due to people rotating in and out of camp, just three of us were in the field that day (Tyler Hicks and us). Tyler is an amazing birder and a coauthor on the Avian Conservation and Ecology publication about the Ivory-bill possibly still existing in Florida; he saw Ivory-bill twice during last year’s field season. Shortly after leaving camp Tyler heard 3 double-knocks (a bill to tree banging pattern unique to Ivory-bills and other members of the genus Campephilus—Pileated woodpeckers belong to the genus Dryocopus). He called us on our GPS/radio (we all carry these handy units which not only tell us our location but when updated also give locations of all the other searchers in the forest) and then sent us the coordinates. We split up and within about 45 minutes Diane heard three kent calls! These vocalizations are unique to Ivory-bills and difficult to confuse with any other forest sounds. Later in the morning Diane and I both heard four double-knocks and a couple hours later Tyler heard kent calls and then had a quick “visual” on a bird! While he didn’t get a photograph (it’s hard to describe how difficult this will be but easy to appreciate once you are in the field) he is confident of his sighting and has made careful notes and drawings documenting his encounter. Since then others have heard kent calls in the area and a volunteer from Virginia briefly observed a bird on the wing.Of course, that "unique to Ivory-bills" phrasing is very wrong. Some related information is here.
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23 comments:
No one here has produced a single sound file that matches the Hill “kents” nearly as well as the Tate audio does. I know it has been broadly stated that the “kent” sounds are not unique to IBWO. If so, it should be easy to provide a sound file from another possible source that sounds like the Hill audio and the Tate audio. I think Ms. Deresienski has the evidence on her side here.
By the way, has anyone here heard a deer make a “kent” call? Which of the Mennill clips is a good fit for what you heard?
pd
Who is Tate again? I like the Hill kent sounds better than the Cornell kents. Personal experience with Blue Jays recently leads me to feel 100% that the Cornell Kent sounds are Blue-Jays.
And those are the best they got.
I'm still equivocal on the Hill audio. Yes let's see the sonogram.
Paul in upstate NY
pd,
Sorry, but I have been out of the loop for a while. What is the "Tate audio" and is it online? Thanks.
PD, Tom already posted about the sonogram of a deer's call that was an excellent match for IBWO. It can be found here. Hill has not published a single sonogram showing a match, so it's his move.
And don't forget the following... Rosenberg acknowledges that all audio evidence is open to interpretation. "Some of their recordings sound very good, and others are not in the range that we would characterize as very good," said Rosenberg. What the researchers tout as the best kent calls "do not match the known recordings of the ivory-bill. But we don't know what they are. We can't identify the hornlike kents as any bird that should be in that forest."
So per Rosenberg, none of the calls match known IBWO calls.
PD, it sounds like you need a lesson in science. It is not valid to say that an unknown call that doesn't match IBWO is evidence of IBWO. You can't say, "I can't explain it so it MUST be this." This type of non-scientific rhetoric is what ticks off most skeptics. Give us solid evidence, not word games!
I'd also be interested in what you consider the top half dozen or so best calls. When I listened to all of them in a row, they were all over the map. They varied so much that they don't even sound like they are all from the same animal.
So which are you saying are good for IBWO? Which are not? Why? What criteria are you using? It sure as heck ain't sonograms compared to known IBWO calls.
If so, it should be easy to provide a sound file from another possible source that sounds like the Hill audio and the Tate audio.
Point well made. In fact, how about this:
A. An independent research group is given the equipment and personnel available to Hill et al and allowed to record / selectively edit 10’s of thousands of hours of sound recordings from a set of random locations. I suspect that the probability of identifying sounds closely matching the known kent and knock sounds would be quite high.
Or better yet.
B. Maybe Hill et al could actually repeat their work in a nearby area that is not reported to have IBWO.
No, wait…. Either of these options might be considered a control experiment and might raise this research to a level of rigor approaching that expected of a grade school science project.
Sorry about saying Tate, when I meant Allen/Kellogg. My error.
pd
Last I heard, Cornell WAS collecting sound recordings outside of the range and seeing if they could pick up kent-like and double-knock like calls. Not sure that's been made public yet.
Pd has the Bobby/Tyler/Gallagher disease, if it's not identified then it must be Ivory-bill.
There is now word out of the Auburn Ornithological department that Hill is becoming an embarrassment, but that it's all pretty much on his own time and dime so what can they do?
I still say that at least some of the "kents" on the Hill website are the breaks of mountain bikes passing underneath the recorders.
My Two Cents
Oops, I mean "brakes."
My Two Cents
I'm still equivocal on the Hill audio. Yes let's see the sonogram.
LOL!!!!!!
"I'm still equivalent on the Bigfoot prints. Let's see the X-ray analysis."
Last I heard, Cornell WAS collecting sound recordings outside of the range and seeing if they could pick up kent-like and double-knock like calls.
Yeah, and OJ is busy looking for Nicole's killer.
Sorry to disappoint you gang, but did not say that Hill’s “kents” are evidence of IBWO; only a photo will be useful as evidence, even Hill agrees with that. I did say that no one here has produced a single sound file that matches the Hill “kents” nearly as well as the single existing IBWO audio does. This remains the case.
By “match” I mean “sounds similar to the human ear”. Someone asks, “Which of Hill’s “kents” are good?” They’re all about the same to me, but let’s say all from March 24 are good.
I don’t see a need to set up elaborate experiments to find random matching sounds, although you’re welcome to try. Tens of thousands of hours from the Pearl and the Big Woods have already been scoured for “kents” to no avail. But why look for “kents” among random sounds? Researchers are working with and recording deer, geese, jays, and nuthatches all the time. Does anyone have an audio file from these or any other animal that sounds to the human ear like the March 24 audio? From the above comments I gather the answer is “no.”
Also, has anyone here heard a deer make a “kent” call? Which of the Mennill clips is a good fit for what you heard?
pd
When you think about it, deer calls might be the most logical explanation for many of the calls. Think about it.
- Kent calls have never been recorded in a series, like the known IBWO recordings.
- Kent calls have never been recorded in direct conjunction with double-raps.
- Kent calls have never been recorded that show obvious motion. That would require recording calls from varying positions just seconds apart. (I seem to recall that the Auburn evidence of motion involved minutes, not seconds. That's plenty of time for a deer to walk. It might not even be the same animal.)
- Nobody seems to be able to track down an IBWO by kent calls. Maybe that's because sneaking up on a deer on foot is not the easiest thing to do. They simply walk away. And you have little chance of seeing them if you are busy looking up in the trees.
On the topic of the Florida kent calls vs. known IBWO recordsing, people should review this complete analysis on this blog done by Louis Bevier.
The fact is that the Florida calls don't match known IBWO at all. That means they are either completely unknown IBWO calls (and the birds virtually never utter known IBWO calls) or they are not IBWO calls at all.
Anonymous provides a nice summation of the universe of possible explanations of the audio data:
the [putative IBWOs] virtually never utter known IBWO calls, [only] unknown calls
versus
they are not IBWO calls at all
Only one of these twp explanations passes the laugh test.
The other explanation is an ad hoc joke that could be used to link virtually any observation made in the swamp to the existence of living IBWOs.
If the IBWOs make different noises now, then maybe their beaks have turned black, too. Maybe they stopped peeling bark off trees and making "bigger" roost holes. How come the believers never discuss these possibilities?
I did say that no one here has produced a single sound file that matches the Hill “kents” nearly as well as the single existing IBWO audio does.
Wrong. Look at the sonogram of the deer call compared to one of Mennil's calls. The match looks excellent to me. Don't you agree?
BTW, you state that the Florida notes match IBWO. On what do you base that? Your opinion of what you hear? Why not sonograms which are vastly more sensitive and accurate than the human ear?
By “match” I mean “sounds similar to the human ear”. Someone asks, “Which of Hill’s “kents” are good?” They’re all about the same to me, but let’s say all from March 24 are good.
Well that all depends upon which human ear we're talking about. I hear plenty of variation. You say they sound the same to you. Since Bevier shows enormous variation by measurement, and shows no calls actually matching IBWO, I'd say that you have a serious perception problem. That's why you think they all sound good, and Bevier, Rosenberg, myself, and others do not.
The sonogram supports our view that at least some of the calls match deer. You have no sonogram to show any calls matching IBWO and, in fact, Bevier's analysis show that none of the calls match.
Your move. Show me the matching IBWO sonogram that beats out the deer call for a match.
How about Tom's posting in December about the Blue Jay kent calls?
“BTW, you state that the Florida notes match IBWO. On what do you base that? Your opinion of what you hear? Why not sonograms which are vastly more sensitive and accurate than the human ear?”
… because we know nothing about the context or volume of the deer sonogram. In the Dittmann anecdote it was “especially the cadence” of the fawn bleat (six grouped notes) that reminded her of the IBWO recording. Is the deer sonogram from a single note or rhythmic notes like Dittmann encountered? To my knowledge none of us have heard a fawn make single notes like the Mennill notes, but IBWO did produce single notes.
As I’ve metioned before, Peterson described the sound as “a single loud “toot” made constantly when foraging” Others described the sound as being similar to an out of tune trumpet or clarinet. The Mennill’s notes, to my ear (yes, to my ear), evoke single, off, musical notes. Most bird and animal calls do not. I don’t know about the deer bleat because I can’t tell by looking at the sonogram it if it would evoke a musical instrument. Our calculators just don’t tell us that.
We gave CLO hell, rightly, for analyzing wingbeats based on a sample of one bird. If you want to continue to rely on sonogram analysis based on a sample of one bird, be my guest, but I would suggest drawing on broader literature and field experience to make judgments.
I’m still waiting to HEAR an animal sound that matches Mennill as well as the IBWO recordings do. My experience tells me none will be forthcoming.
Also, I’m still waiting to learn if anyone here has actually heard a deer make a “kent” call? Which of the Mennill clips is a good fit for what you heard?
pd
The "kent" debate is kind of a moot point anyway, isn't it? It simply serves to (apparently successfully) string people along. Even if you got repeated perfect recordings of kent calls, double knocks and the notable "wooden wings" sounds in conjunction, (neither Fitzcrow nor Hillcrow has, and you would, for sure, if the bird actually existed) it would still not stand up as proof without Repeated sightings by independent observers of birds really well seen.
Also, I’m still waiting to learn if anyone here has actually heard a deer make a “kent” call?
I agree that kent calls are a moot point relative to real evidence, but to give one person’s input on the general question, I can say that I have personally heard white-tailed deer in captivity make many surprising sounds. On the occasions that I heard these sounds I was not thinking about comparing them to an extinct bird so I cannot honestly say if any would match IBWO kents. But this should be an easy question to resolve. There are a number of research herds of white-tailed deer around the country (Auburn may have even had one at some point). I am sure that someone would be more than willing to record deer sounds if asked. Anyone know any deer researchers?
… because we know nothing about the context or volume of the deer sonogram.
Uh, oh. Rule change alert! We have a known recording of a fawn's call that matches a Florida call to a tee, but it doesn't count if we don't know what it's doing at that moment?
As I’ve metioned before, Peterson described the sound as “a single loud “toot” made constantly when foraging” Others described the sound as being similar to an out of tune trumpet or clarinet. The Mennill’s notes, to my ear (yes, to my ear), evoke single, off, musical notes. Most bird and animal calls do not.
PD, you want to hear something that sounds, to your particular ear, like the recorded calls. I think Tom's Blue Jay citation is a good fit. Maybe you don't. But all of that is opinion. Sonograms are science.
The fact is that when measured scientifically, the Florida calls don't match any known IBWO calls and we see that one call obviously matches White-tailed Deer (and you yourself said that all the calls sound the same to you, so they must all match the deer). You dismissed the science that I cited without really addressing anything head on ("that's not what I want" is not addressing the issue), so I guess I'm done with this thread.
pd wrote:
"By the way, has anyone here heard a deer make a “kent” call? Which of the Mennill clips is a good fit for what you heard?"
####
Dear pd-
YES, I've heard a deer fawn giving nice "kent" calls in Louisiana.
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