A quote from the article, on the two Hill "sightings":
He saw what he believes was his first ivory-billed woodpecker on Jan. 5, 2006. It was a little after dawn. He was paddling a kayak when a large bird blew past him.
Later he wrote in his field notes: "I saw a bird with a wingspan greater than a wood duck fly over my head and away from me. The time was 0638. The bird was not exactly like anything I've seen before. It reminded me of a small loon. It had a long neck and long tail. Wingbeats seemed rather stiff and shallow. . . . I am rather confident that it was an ivorybill"
Jan. 21, 2006:
"Naked eye view. Bird flushed from about 30 feet as I was moving noisily through a flooded tupelo/cypress stand. It came off a tree about 3 to 5 feet from the water. . . . Flight was strong and fast. It made no sound at all as it flew. With naked eye and the bird flying away I saw few details: jet black except wide striking white band on trailing edge of wings. It looked large and longer-winged than a pileated."
I remind everyone again of Lowery's three conditions for a large woodpecker sighting to be considered a possible Ivory-bill:
"*Seeing the ivory-colored bill of the bird.
*Hearing the bird give typical nasal yamp calls.
*Seeing the extensive white on the bird's underwing produced mainly by the white secondary feathers."
In the first sighting, Hill got 0 for 3. In the second, he got 1 of 3. Applying the Lowery standard, his sightings are useless.
The final nail in the coffin of the second sighting is this line:
It made no sound at all as it flew. (This at 30 feet.)
Tanner said (my bold): In the initial flight, when the wings are beaten particularly hard, they make quite a loud, wooden, fluttering sound, so much so that I often nicknamed the birds 'wooden-wings'; it is the loudest wing sound I have ever heard from any bird of that size except the grouse.
"It had a long neck and long tail. Wingbeats seemed rather stiff and shallow"
"it looked large and longer winged than a Pileated"
=Anhinga male
"jet black except striking white band on trailing edge of wings"
Male Anthingas are jet black and have a white band on their wings. The white doesn't extend to the trailing edge, except medially, but we already know that IBWO TBs cannot be trusted to correctly interpret the position of white in wings, even after thousands of hours of careful study.
This article is so full of inaccurate and unsubstantiated statements that it's ridiculous.
Unlike the common cousin they superficially resemble, the pileated woodpecker, ivory-billeds avoided humanity, probably because Indians shot them for ceremonial feathers and pioneers shot them for supper.
And Indieans and pioneers never shot any other bird. Ridiculous, and based on nothing.
Awestruck naturalists lucky enough to catch even a glimpse of an ivory-billed sometimes wept. "The Lord God Bird," they called it.
Only if they were mentally unstable. I love birds, but for chrissake, IT'S A BIRD!
As God sputtered in frustration, some smarty-pants scientist would ask "Did you get a photo?"
Smarty-pants? Was this written for Ranger Rick magazine? The Elementary School Times?
People confuse pileated woodpeckers with ivory-billeds but they are as different as they can be.
As different as IBWO and, say, a duck? Or a loon? Or an Anhinga?
Pileateds live comfortably in city back yards and eat almost anything.
City back yards? No mention of the need for decent sized trees? And do they eat birdseed? Cat food? Fish?
They fly in undulating swoops between trees. The ivory-billed flies more powerfully, straight ahead, like a duck or loon.
More repetition of one description. What about Audubon's description? Oh, that's right. He was a "showman" (per Bobbycrow).
Pileated woodpeckers make baseball-sized cavities. Ivory-billed cavities are larger and more oval. Hill has photographed large oval cavities that suggest the presence of ivory-billed woodpeckers.
Except for the fact that when they do see or video things come out of them, they turn out to be Pileateds, squirrels, etc.
What a load of s***. Of course, I'm sure the author isn't an IBWO searcher and true believer, so where did he get his information? Probably from the guy who wants to "avoid anything that smacks of the lunatic fringe."
Posts
4 comments:
A quote from the article, on the two Hill "sightings":
He saw what he believes was his first ivory-billed woodpecker on Jan. 5, 2006. It was a little after dawn. He was paddling a kayak when a large bird blew past him.
Later he wrote in his field notes: "I saw a bird with a wingspan greater than a wood duck fly over my head and away from me. The time was 0638. The bird was not exactly like anything I've seen before. It reminded me of a small loon. It had a long neck and long tail. Wingbeats seemed rather stiff and shallow. . . . I am rather confident that it was an ivorybill"
Jan. 21, 2006:
"Naked eye view. Bird flushed from about 30 feet as I was moving noisily through a flooded tupelo/cypress stand. It came off a tree about 3 to 5 feet from the water. . . . Flight was strong and fast. It made no sound at all as it flew. With naked eye and the bird flying away I saw few details: jet black except wide striking white band on trailing edge of wings. It looked large and longer-winged than a pileated."
I remind everyone again of Lowery's three conditions for a large woodpecker sighting to be considered a possible Ivory-bill:
"*Seeing the ivory-colored bill of the bird.
*Hearing the bird give typical nasal yamp calls.
*Seeing the extensive white on the bird's underwing produced mainly by the white secondary feathers."
In the first sighting, Hill got 0 for 3. In the second, he got 1 of 3. Applying the Lowery standard, his sightings are useless.
The final nail in the coffin of the second sighting is this line:
It made no sound at all as it flew. (This at 30 feet.)
Tanner said (my bold): In the initial flight, when the wings are beaten particularly hard, they make quite a loud, wooden, fluttering sound, so much so that I often nicknamed the birds 'wooden-wings'; it is the loudest wing sound I have ever heard from any bird of that size except the grouse.
How is anyone still believing these reports???
"a wingspan greater than a wood duck"
"It had a long neck and long tail. Wingbeats seemed rather stiff and shallow"
"it looked large and longer winged than a Pileated"
=Anhinga male
"jet black except striking white band on trailing edge of wings"
Male Anthingas are jet black and have a white band on their wings. The white doesn't extend to the trailing edge, except medially, but we already know that IBWO TBs cannot be trusted to correctly interpret the position of white in wings, even after thousands of hours of careful study.
How can there be a bird that is impossible to photograph?
Easy. The bird exists in the mind of a lunatic.
This article is so full of inaccurate and unsubstantiated statements that it's ridiculous.
Unlike the common cousin they superficially resemble, the pileated woodpecker, ivory-billeds avoided humanity, probably because Indians shot them for ceremonial feathers and pioneers shot them for supper.
And Indieans and pioneers never shot any other bird. Ridiculous, and based on nothing.
Awestruck naturalists lucky enough to catch even a glimpse of an ivory-billed sometimes wept. "The Lord God Bird," they called it.
Only if they were mentally unstable. I love birds, but for chrissake, IT'S A BIRD!
As God sputtered in frustration, some smarty-pants scientist would ask "Did you get a photo?"
Smarty-pants? Was this written for Ranger Rick magazine? The Elementary School Times?
People confuse pileated woodpeckers with ivory-billeds but they are as different as they can be.
As different as IBWO and, say, a duck? Or a loon? Or an Anhinga?
Pileateds live comfortably in city back yards and eat almost anything.
City back yards? No mention of the need for decent sized trees? And do they eat birdseed? Cat food? Fish?
They fly in undulating swoops between trees. The ivory-billed flies more powerfully, straight ahead, like a duck or loon.
More repetition of one description. What about Audubon's description? Oh, that's right. He was a "showman" (per Bobbycrow).
Pileated woodpeckers make baseball-sized cavities. Ivory-billed cavities are larger and more oval. Hill has photographed large oval cavities that suggest the presence of ivory-billed woodpeckers.
Except for the fact that when they do see or video things come out of them, they turn out to be Pileateds, squirrels, etc.
What a load of s***. Of course, I'm sure the author isn't an IBWO searcher and true believer, so where did he get his information? Probably from the guy who wants to "avoid anything that smacks of the lunatic fringe."
Post a Comment