This IBWO searcher admits that glimpses of some non-woodpeckers (especially anhingas) can be confusing.
A related post by Patrick Coin is here.
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11 comments:
Great to see the anhinga theory, long my favorite, finally getting some serious attention.
"He at first thought was a crow, then realized it had a direct duck-like flight, and a large white patch on the wing "like the speculum of a diving duck". How do we know it was not a diving duck?"
perhaps a female Hooded Merganser?
Female Wood Ducks could also have been turned into an IBWO by certain "experienced birders" focusing on their favorite field mark, the notorious white trailing edge.
Its worth mentioning that if the "experienced birders" were familiar with the extant Campephilus they might have compared their sightings to these rather than to far less relevant crows and ducks.
"Rip" and many of the other "Ivorybill Hunters" out there aren't birders, don't know Jack about birds, and are doing little but creating confusion. Even as someone who thinks the dang birds may well really be out there, I wish that particular species of Ivorybill Searcher would go extinct.
At least they are pointing out the basis of real human errors and not claiming that squirrel cavities, random sounds and blurry glimpses are scientific proof that extinct species exist.
Oh get serious here. Someone who can't tell a duck from an anhinga from a crow from a woodpecker has no business claiming a sighting of ANY bird, much less a rare one. Hell Jesse Gildorf couldn't even identify a perched Black Vulture that he saw well enough to take a decent photos. The idiot mistakes of incompetent observers like them have nothing to do with the extremely few sightings made by actual birders who can tell a hawk from a hernshaw no mater which direction the wind is blowing.
"made by actual birders"
I want to be one of these. Where are the club meetings? Is there a secret handshake? Are actual birders the ones that drive the little cars in parades? This is so cool.
"Oh get serious here."
We skeptics are serious when we suggest that many of the very brief, poor-quality sightings by "experienced" IBWO searchers were likely of non-woodpeckers. Any overzealous birder can turn a brief glimpse into a rarity and thereby make an idiot mistake, even if they can quickly and correctly ID the species in question every time when seen well. Egregiously bad calls are made all the time by knowledgeable but overconfident birders not attuned to their own perceptual limitations. Even experts make ridiculous public miscalls, especially under extreme conditions like pelagic trips and seawatches, and but most retract them before any harm is done and everyone has a good laugh at their expense. Very good and experienced birders miscall glimpsed and heard-only birds all the time, but the difference is that after some honest reflection they do not report them, or report them as hypothetical (ones that got away). They do not exaggerate the reliability of their marginal sightings, much less use them as the basis for a research program and associated fund-raising. It is true that any reasonably good birders would never mistake an IBWO if they ever saw one perched on a tree for a long time (as they surely would if real Campephilus were involved). However, none of the IBWO sightings have been anywhere close to this good.
I agree that many of the better (but still brief and otherwise poor) sightings by the better (but still deluded) birders among the IBWO searchers were of woodpeckers, but not of IBWOs.
Yes but to support your hypothesis you pull up irrelevent mistakes made by people who know squat about birds. "Anybody can make a mistake" is right up there with "you can't prove a negative": true but unhelpful. Its just like creationists saying "Science can never absolutely prove a theory", its just sloganizing. Show me where Tyler Hicks for instance has shown a history of making big-time blunders outside of the IBWO situation. No rumors allowed, show me real reported rarities that were questionable/unreasonable/retracted/disbelieved by the community as a whole. No fair going back to when he was 8 year old, either. Yes one of the big differences between real birders (and the club meeetings would be your local, state, or regional ornithological societies, bird clubs, christmas counts, field trips, etc. etc. where you get your skills improved by going out with those who know more than you do) is the willingness to think twice and go beyond the first impression. If you want to discredit the more experienced observers who strongly believe they have seen IBWOs, you need more than nonsense about anhingas and boiler pate about "anyone can make a mistake." These are arguments used by someone who has no real argument. You need some tangible, demonstrable reason to believe that this particular individual, not just "anyone," is the sort of person who would behave in the way you suggest. So far I haven't seen this. Real stringers leave a trail of string and aren't hard to identify. Instead you fall back on "well he must be wrong because it is impossible for him to be right" *bzzzzzzz* wrong answer, religion not science.
anon 1:11:
Too bad for you, Tyler, and all other TBs and their apologists, but the burden of proof has always been and will forever be entirely on you. So far no one has come up with any good evidence that the IBWO persisted in the USA after 1944. Your pathetic record speaks for itself: 63 years and counting of ungracious failure, delusion, exaggeration, and unseemly self-promotion.
"If you want to discredit the more experienced observers who strongly believe they have seen IBWOs"
I don't have to discredit them. Their foolishness will become more and more apparent as IBWO claims drag on for many more years without any proof and their desperate excuses become more and more self-evidently ridiculous.
"Anybody can make a mistake"
I wasn't saying this. I was saying that the most experienced, top-notch birders (not just anyone) misperceive birds based on fleeting glimpses all the time, and it is human nature to make connections, often highly creative but spurious, between glimpsed field marks and desired rare species. The most mature and best birders experience these misleading perceptions too and also make erroneous connections, but recognize these pitfalls, do not report tantalizing glimpses as definite identifications, and in general do not oversell brief sightings. Those who restrain themselves and keep the ones that got away to themselves eventually gain the most respect from their peers, whereas Hill et al. and the CLO seem intent on upgrading any mere glimpse into a quality sighting, any A cavity into an IBWO nest, and any series of "encounters" into nine breeding pairs.
"You need some tangible, demonstrable reason to believe that this particular individual, not just "anyone," is the sort of person who would behave in the way you suggest"
I do: his poor field notes and obvious internal inconsistencies in his sketches. If you believe in guilt by association, there are abundant reasons to question his judgement. If he's such a careful observer, why does he associate himself with stringers on the Auburn team, the CLO, and with the absurd statements made by their leaders?
"Real [IBWO] stringers" like Bobby, the CLO, Mary Scott, and several members of the Hill team including Tyler "leave a trail of [IBWO] string" throughout the Southeastern bottomlands.
Sorry Buck but all you've said there is "They're wrong because I know they're wrong."
Sorry Buck but all you've said there is "They're wrong because I know they're wrong."
I think it's more "they're likely to be wrong because nobody can ever follow up any of their reports with solid proof."
Show me where Tyler Hicks for instance has shown a history of making big-time blunders outside of the IBWO situation. No rumors allowed, show me real reported rarities that were questionable/unreasonable/retracted/disbelieved by the community as a whole.
That wouldn't be difficult at all. Ask Kansas birders.
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