More on "Lord God"

Here.

Where we stand, 6/1/07

As yet another Ivory-bill search season ends in failure, more and more people are recognizing the complete absurdity of this most recent Ivory-bill hysteria.

However, the fantasy still lives in many places. Some examples as of 6/1/07:

1. The Big Woods Conservation partnership (Cornell, The Nature Conservancy, etc) site is proudly displaying the "found!" banner.

2. Some memorable videos are still available here, including some footage from that 4/28/05 press conference.

3. CLO is selling "found!" merchandise.

4. David Luneau is selling what he claims to be an Ivory-billed Woodpecker video.

5. The USFWS is officially defending the Luneau video. An excerpt from here (PDF):

The Service and its conservation partners consider most persuasive, among a number of reasons, the failure of all known videos showing pileated woodpeckers in flight to even come close to matching the characteristics present on the bird in the Luneau video in rejecting this alternative explanation.

6. The USFWS Ivory-bill "Recovery Team" page is still up.

7. The Eagle Optics page on Bobby Harrison is still up. An excerpt:

Eagle Optics is proud to announce sponsorship of Bobby Harrison’s search to capture the ultimate footage of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker — focusing on the Big Woods of Arkansas. Eagle Optics is also proud to bring you exclusive updates about his search on our website.

8. The Birds of North America Online is still standing behind the rediscovery story.

9. The "Ivory-billed Expeditions" site is still up.

10. According to the Bird Records Committee of the Arkansas Audubon Society, the status of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker in Arkansas is "present".

11. The first sentence in the Wikipedia Ivory-bill page still says the bird is "extremely rare"; people have tried to add "or extinct" into that sentence, but that wording has always been removed.

12. As recently as a couple of weeks ago, Bobby Harrison was still giving public lectures about his Ivory-bill sighting claims.

"Nessie caught on tape"

Someone posted this YouTube link in the comment section.

Williston Pioneer article

Here.

More on "Lord God"

Here.

IBWO spread wing photo and article in The Auk

A reader writes:

The reason I'm writing is that there is at least one article of interest just published. You may remember the Ivory-bill spread wing shown in a video tape interview of Joel Cracraft by Jim Gorman on the New York Times web site after Sibley's paper came out in Science. The article describing and illustrating that wing preparation has now been published in The Auk. The short article is available at BioOne online but requires a subscription (either to AOU or via an institution that has subscription to BioOne). The specimen is at the American Museum of Natural History.

Below is Figure 4 from that article:



Fig. 4. Dorsal (left) and ventral (right) surfaces of left wing of male Ivory-billed Woodpecker (above) and
Pileated Woodpecker (below). Photograph by Craig Chesek (AMNH).

Voice of America article (with video)

Here.

Down the flank?

A poster at Birdforum makes an interesting point about Tyler Hicks' 5/27/05 IBWO report here.

Update: A followup post is here, and another is here.

The field notes are here (PDF); Sibley's ID tips are here (PDF).

Double raps produced by duck wings

Check this out.

More on helmet cams

Here.

Adding to ASU' s mystique?

Here.

Today's links

1. An excerpt from this article:

“Rich Guthrie was a volunteer on the ivory bill search, but as far as verifying his sighting, we can’t,” said Constance Bruce, of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

2. More from Martin Collinson here and here.