Another version of the recent AP/Big Thicket search article is here.
Media coverage of Ivory-bill searches seems to be getting notably less enthusiastic these days.
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Shoebox-size cameras belted to tree trunks are aimed at promising cavities carved out by woodpeckers or at areas where bark has been scaled off by birds in search of a beetle snack. They've captured photos of squirrels and other birds, including the similar-looking but smaller pileated woodpecker, but no ivory-bills.
So where's the data published on all of the non-IBWOs doing the scaling and living in big holes?
There seems to be an abundance of "possible" IBWO sign published on the web or in papers, but a dearth of evidence that show these hypotheses are worthless. Every once in a while, though, those Pileateds and squirrels peek out from under the covers. Sounds like Pileated have been found in IBWO type holes by CLO, Auburn, and now in the Big Thicket.
The key to an Ivory-bill sighting is a BRIEF LOOK. Unfortunately, if a sighting takes too much time your Ivory-bill will turn into a Pileated, or perhaps a duck or a branch stub.
From the Fairbanks News-Miner:
For one fleeting moment, Mark Ross thought he had found it — the rare, elusive ivory-billed woodpecker.
“One day I was paddling up a small creek off the Suwannee River; the sun was at my back so the lighting was good,” said Ross. “I was peering into the forest and a large bird flew through the woods maybe 50 yards away and then went into a patch of sun.”
It was in that mini-instant that Ross thought he may have found what bird experts have spent the last 60 years searching for.
“I saw two, brilliant white flashes,” he said. “My brain told me, ‘That’s the white secondarys on the dorsal side of the ivory bill’s wings.’
“My heart jumped into my throat,” Ross said. “I sat in my position and listened very carefully and maybe three seconds later I heard the raucous call of a pileated woodpecker from that location.”
Pileated woodpeckers look similar to ivory-bills, though not as large, and are often mistaken for them. Their call, however, is distinctly different than an ivory-bill’s.
At the sound, Ross’ heart sank and he paddled on in his 14-foot folding canoe.
What do you think is more likely explanation for all these brief glances where someone is certain they see "white secondaries?" They've actually seen a bird that's impossible to photograph and quite probably extinct, or they've just made a simple, and common, mistake?
Imagine in the above story that someone else had reported an "Ivory-bill" sighting in that area shortly before, and this observer hadn't heard the Pileated woodpecker call. We'd likely have another Ivory-bill sighting reported, adding to the "undeniable preponderance of evidence."
"That sighting, along with a subsequent April 2004 video of the bird taken by a University of Arkansas-Little Rock biologist, ''was the most exciting thing I've heard.."
That was true for me too. The video was the most exciting thing I had heard in some time. But seeing the video was one of the most depressing.
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