More from Cyberthrush

Here.

"Hopeful Signs"

Cornell has just put up this update.

An excerpt:

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology continues to be very encouraged by what Hill’s team is reporting. The Lab's ivory-bill project scientists have not evaluated the Florida data, but our mobile search team is now in Florida and will be joining Hill’s group later this month...

Trip reports from the Stokeses

Here, here, and here.

Another IBWO blog

...from a Choctawhatchee searcher here.

Excerpts:

-On my first day I heard suggestive "double-knocks" deep in the forest, which may well have come from an Ivory-billed Woodpecker (henceforth known by its banding code "IBWO." I'm still on the fence as to whether the bird exists at all, though slowly coming around to believing that it does. I'm quite familiar with all of the other woodpeckers in these forests, and have never heard anything quite like this.
...
-In the middle of my stint deep in the wet woods, my team was interviewed by a documentary crew making a movie about the IBWO and those personalities involved in the search for it. How bizarre! One moment I'm kilometers from any other person, stuck in a back channel with soaking feet and face-to-face with a venomous water moccasin (aka cottonmouth). Three hours later I'm back in camp hobknobbing with George Butler, the director of the film "Pumping Iron," the vehicle that carried Governator Schwarzenegger to fame.

Wavering confidence?

Last August, Fishcrow boldly wrote:

Last year, I publicly guaranteed that I would find ivorybills. That mission was easy enough. This year's guarantee is that I'll get a good image.

Yesterday, he wrote:

...I saw a tree on the bank that already has open flowers. This early sign of spring is a reminder that the prime search season will be over before we know it. With time slipping away, I sometimes wonder if I'll ever have another sighting. I'm looking forward to the first wave of reinforcements, who should start arriving in a week or so.

Up to $250 for a seat at Harrison's IBWO gala?

Here.

...Tickets to the Gala, which include program and dinner, range from $35 up to $250 for the better seats. If you donate at or above the "Enthusiast" level ($500 to $10,000+) your Gala tickets are included...

Zickefoose on bark scaling

An excerpt from this post:

The pileated was working on this Virginia pine tree, scored and incised with bark beetle tunnels.
...picture here...
Ivory-bill fans note: It was quite ably scaling tightly-adhering bark. Don't underestimate those "delicate" pileateds. They're powerhouses.

More detail on the sighting that "revived the woodpecker hunt?"

"Kipster", who identifies himself as the city planner for McCrory (AR), has posted a claim of a female IBWO sighting here. Note that his IBWO had white wing tips, and it seemed to do a lot of gliding.

Kipster's story sounds a lot like the one in that highly-publicized AP story last month.

I wonder if Kipster is actually Kip Davis, the city planner for McCrory (AR), one of the two men claiming the female IBWO sighting in the AP story. Note that Cornell is currently featuring the Kip Davis sighting here.

Butterfly vs IBWO

From this link:

Rep. John Paul Wells, a Paris Democrat and a co-sponsor of the bill, said the [Diana Fritillary] butterfly is unique. But he contrasted it with the ivory-billed woodpecker, when asked by legislators just how rare the butterfly is.

Wells said, "The difference between this and the ivory-billed woodpecker is we've actually seen these."

A little more about Tyler Hicks

1. Even before this latest claim of Tyler Hicks' IBWO sighting on Christmas Eve '06, it said this on Geoff Hill's site:

Tyler Hicks recorded the best sight records by a skilled birder since the Singer Tract was cut.

2. In addition to at least three "Ivory-bill" sightings, Tyler has at least 11 more heard-only Ivory-bills under his belt. See Table S2 here (PDF).

Note that around Christmas '05, he detected Ivory-bills by sound on five consecutive days.

3. He's now recorded detailed IBWO sightings on two consecutive Christmas Eves.

4. As of this September '06 article, Hicks is described as "a 23-year-old professional birder from Kansas" and "an undergraduate student in Colorado". He's also credited as being the one that "suggested they turn their attention to the Choctawhatchee River south of Geneva."

Dr. Robert J. Fulton to speak

From this link:

JANUARY MEETING: Augusta-Aiken Audubon will hold its bi-monthly meeting on Thursday, January 11, at 7 p.m.

PROGRAM: Search for the Ivory-billed Woodpecker a firsthand account presented by Dr. Robert J. Fulton. Dr. Fulton, a noted writer and photographer who grew up roaming the wild expanses of south Florida, recently joined the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology in searches of Congaree National Park and the Cache River area of Arkansas. Augusta-Aiken Audubon has reserved a double-sized room at the North Augusta Community Center to accommodate members and the public for this exciting presentation...

I just Googled Fulton, and it looks like he's everywhere.

He's scheduled to speak in Fort Myers on January 12. From this link:

In his presentation Dr. Robert Fulton, PhD, describes his involvement in the search for the ivory-billed woodpecker, an amazing bird long purported to be extinct. A native to South Florida, Dr. Fulton is an outdoorsman, writer, and long-time naturalist. In April 2006, Dr. Fulton joined the team of volunteers and scientists put together by Cornell University’s Lab of Ornithology to explore the Bayou de View in Arkansas’ Big Woods to search the swamp for clues of this incredible woodpecker. In November 2006, Dr. Fulton led a crew through the Choctowatchee River in the Florida panhandle investigating sites where promising information of the species has been collected. Come be one of the first to hear what he and his team discovered as Dr. Fulton shares the experiences of his adventures and his endeavors in protecting the bird’s habitat.Admission is $5...

Also check out this link relating to a presentation he did last October (the bold font is mine):

...Dr. Fulton and five other volunteers spent two weeks in April of this year exploring the Bayou de View, a swampy area of Arkansas’s Big Woods. In doing so, they worked with Bobby Harrison and Gene Sparling, the two men who made the initial find in 2004. The program’s photos “are…a testimony to the beauty of and benefits from conserving such important places. What the searchers learned is proving to be a bonanza of information — information which Cornell will use to further increase its knowledge of birds and other wildlife.” Copies of a book detailing Dr. Fulton’s experiences with the team will be available for purchase after the program.

"IBWO" photos on VIREO

Note the "N. Wright" photos here.

Links from readers

1. An emailer writes:

It's a bit off topic for the blog, but I thought you might be interested in it anyway, if only for the opening sentence saying Pileateds are the largest woodpeckers in North America:

"Pileated woodpeckers, the largest woodpeckers in North America, hammer their heads into trees with a force of 15 mph, 20 times a second."

Here's the link.

2. Another emailer writes:

Here's an article you might have seen that discusses how fraud or sloppiness is not universally tolerated – though it helps if there is an insider whistle blower.

A question about the latest Tyler Hicks story

I'm quite curious about this excerpt from Geoff Hill's update:

Tyler’s encounter was a great photo opportunity, but the camera failed us. Tyler’s SLR was set to auto focus and it focused instead of taking photos during the couple of seconds the bird was in front of him.

Isn't he telling us that Tyler had the camera up, and his view of the bird then was through an unfocused lens?

An excerpt from this link:

Many of the advantages of SLR cameras derive from viewing the scene through the taking lens. Most other types of camera do not have this function; subjects are seen through a viewfinder that is near the lens, making the photographer's view different from the lens' view. SLR cameras provide photographers with precision and confidence; they are seeing an image that will be exposed onto the negative exactly as it is seen through the lens.

The Ivory-bill Chronicles, Chap. 5

Here.

Update from Geoff Hill

Check this out.

I think Tyler Hicks, Bobby Harrison, Mary Scott, and Mike Collins (Fishcrow) have each claimed three or more "Ivory-bill" sightings in recent years...

An excerpt from the above link:

...All searchers will carry video cameras unless they own a digital SLR camera. We do not have a budget to purchase digital SLR cameras for all searchers but I’m becoming convinced that such cameras are better for documenting IBWO than video cameras. Digital SLR cameras by Cannon (and likely other models but I haven’t had a chance to compare) will now turn on in less than a second and can shoot several very high-resolution frames per second. A small ivorybill image on such a high-resolution frame has greater chance of showing diagnostic plumage pattern and than a small ivorybill image on a video frame.

Oh, that Fishcrow

An excerpt from this link:

1-5-07. After the storm, the water levels are about as high as I've seen them in the Pearl. The currents are fairly strong and treacherous in some areas. I saw an otter for the first time since last spring. I wonder where they hide out during the fall. I would also like to know where a certain other species has been hiding out. Two of the leading figures in the ivorybill search have independently told me that nobody is interested in anything short of a clear photo. I have a great deal of respect for both of them, but I strongly disagree with this mindset, which seems to prevail in ornithology. Much of what is done in science would have to be thrown out if this were true. It is often possible to extract valuable information from data that is less than ideal. Astronomers have managed to discover extra-solar planets without sending probes across interstellar space to get photos. Geophysicists have managed to obtain information about the interior of the Earth without digging wells that are hundreds of miles deep. I, for one, will be very interested to see any video that is obtained, whether it adds to the body of evidence from a site, is the first evidence from a new site, or provides insight into the species. I certainly found the two videos from the Choctawhatchee to be interesting. What if nobody manages to get a clear photo? Are we to just turn our backs on the species?

Dwindling updates

USFWS "IBW Updates" page, last update 1/17/06

Bobby Harrison's page at the Eagle Optics site, last update 4/27/06

Mary Scott's site, nine "search reports" dating from spring '05, but none since Jan '06.

The Nature Conservancy's "Big Woods Field Notes", last update 3/06

Geoff Hill's "Updates from Florida", last update 11/27/06

Cornell's Mobile Search Team "Travel Log", last update 12/22/06

Luneau to speak tonight

Details here.

(By the way, this blog currently comes up first in the Google search results for "Luneau video".)

Skeptical sentence removed from Wikipedia IBWO page

Here.

January 8 update: And now the battle is joined. Someone replaced the skeptical sentence, and the person at 71.60.179.184 (who originally removed the sentence) not only replaced it, but went on to busily remove some more skeptical information from the page.

As of this moment, that page has already been edited six times today.

Misinformation

Here (scroll down).