A whole lot of distant toots and taps

Take a look at table 4 (page 17) of CLO's '05-'06 search report here (PDF).

In just over 9,000 hours of ARU recordings, their preliminary report shows over 400,000 automated detections of potential IBWO sounds (over 240,000 potential vocalizations and over 160,000 double knocks).

That's an average of over 40 potential detections per hour!

Numbers like that help explain why you shouldn't get carried away if you hear some potential IBWO sounds anywhere in the woods (even if you're in an alleged "hot zone" and even if you've also glimpsed an intriguing bird within the hour).

"Ivory-billed phantom"

Here.

Article on Caleb Putnam

Here.

Today's links

1. The Mobile Search Team has put up some new pictures (they're able to get lots of clear photos of birds that actually exist).

Check out the February 14 photos here to see some variations in PIWO neck shape.

2. An Onion spoof involving David Sibley is here.

"IT was just fantastic!"

Bobby Harrison has evidently convinced "Ruth" (and her kids) that he really saw a living Ivory-bill.

A skeptical blog post

Here.

Orlando Sentinel opinion piece

Here.

An excerpt:

That this icon may still haunt vast recesses in our state -- recently dead pine stands, swamps, bottomland oak and sweetgum forests -- thrills me more than the Easter Bunny himself caught on film.

Need another break?

If you're tired of all the fussin' and the fightin' of the Ivory-bill debacle, why not just "escape" (if only for a couple of hours) with a nice new movie?

This one looks good.

Todd Engstrom to speak tomorrow

Some details are here.

Mobile Search Team update

Here.

I don't detect a whole lot of Ivory-bill enthusiasm emanating from this crew.

April 1 ScienceNow article

A reader writes:

This probably deserves its own posting, and the skeptic crowd is a bit late to the joke, but it turns out that AAAS didn't have to make up an april fools joke.

They just took the IBWO fiasco and changed the names ...

Have a look, happy belated april fools:

"pig footed bandicoot"

"very frustrating"

Another update from Hill is here.

Remote camera images

An excerpt from David Luneau:

I got over 250,000 images two weeks ago and over 100,000 images this past week.

Even if you believe in the ridiculous "they're always on the other side of a tree" theory, I wonder how you explain the perpetual failure to ever get an Ivory-bill photo using remote cameras.

By the way, I'd still like to know why no one can find an Ivory-bill feather in any of these alleged "hot zones". According to Birds of North America:

As with other woodpeckers, Ivory-billed appears to have had a single annual molt that occurred primarily in summer and fall.

A couple of times since Cornell's announcement, I've stumbled across large black-and-white feathers in my yard that are almost certainly from Pileateds. After examining a photo of one of the feathers, an expert wrote:

It sure looks like a remex (flight feather) from a Pileated, the dorsal view of an outer secondary or inner primary from right wing.

"it hitches around to the other side of the tree"

Here.