More from Collinson

Here.

Losing the mainstream media

1. An excerpt from yesterday's ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH:

...I had put the whole thing out of my mind. Then Nessie came along. In the midst of a hot summer, the people of Springfield have a fun story. They might even get some tourists. Why can't we have something like that?

We can.

Let me announce right now that we had a sighting last weekend of an ivory-billed woodpecker in Forest Park.

As you might remember, the scientific world was rocked in April of 2005 when researchers from Cornell University announced that an ivory-billed woodpecker, thought to be extinct, had been spotted in a swamp in eastern Arkansas. Tourists and birders flocked to the Cache River National Wildlife Refuge. Sadly, there have been no more sightings, and scientists now suspect the original "sighting" was probably that of a common pileated woodpecker.

But wouldn't it be great if another one had been spotted in Forest Park? An ivory-billed woodpecker in St. Louis has to be even rarer than a python in the state capital of Illinois. That would help us get through the summer doldrums.

Sure, let Springfield have its Nessie. And we'll take Woody.

2. An excerpt from a June '07 article in the Houston Chronicle:

Absurdity reigns
...Maybe they could auction guided owl hunts to raise money to fund more research on spotted owls — or ivory-billed woodpeckers. That's another recent situation that seems a little over the top on the "save the planet and everything on it" front.

A few years back, a couple of guys in a canoe thought they saw and heard an ivory-billed woodpecker in an Arkansas swamp. If they did, it was the first one anybody has seen in more than 50 years. If they didn't, which is more likely despite some scratchy audio and a short video clip that makes the Bigfoot snippet we've seen look like it was produced by Dreamworks ... well, they didn't see an ivory-billed woodpecker.

I base that conclusion on the fact that in the years since those men saw what they thought was an ivory-billed woodpecker, hundreds of equally qualified birders have gone into the same region, expanded the search area and not seen that bird.

And by the way, if it's the only ivory-billed woodpecker, it won't be too many years before searching for the thing becomes a moot point.

Choctawhatchee Bird Photo Quiz

A reader writes:

In case you haven’t seen it, the most recent issue of Birding has a photo quiz from the Choctawhatchee River. The photo can be accessed here.

A posting from BirdChat inviting all members of the birding community to participate in the quiz is found here.

Harrison to lecture at the Smithsonian

From the Smithsonian web site:

Friday – July 27
The Call of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker—Rediscovering the Holy Grail of Birds. In an illustrated lecture Bobby Harrison, photographer and associate professor, Oakwood College (Alabama), provides a first-hand account of the “rediscovery” of the ivory-billed woodpecker. He updates search efforts for ivory-bills, explores current controversy and presents his own unpublished video of the bird, long thought extinct. Following his 30 year-long single minded obsession, Bobby Harrison, along with Tim Gallagher of Cornell, “rediscovered” the ghost bird of the shadowy swamp. On February 27, 2004, searching in Arkansas’s hip-deep, boot-sucking mud and canoeing through turgid, brown bayous where deadly cottonmouths abound, Harrison (and Gallagher) identified an unmistakable ivory-billed woodpecker that flew in front of their canoe. Introduced by Jim Tate, formerly scientific adviser to the Secretary of the Interior. Baird Auditorium, noon.

Bevier's website

Here.

Update: Here is a related post from John Trapp.

Audubon magazine articles

"Giving Up the Ghost?" here.

Another article on the Mobile Search Team is here.

AOU meeting abstracts (August 8-11, Wyoming)

An excerpt from the abstracts available here:

212 Hill, Mennill, Rolek, Ligon, Hill, Swiston, Odom & Hicks
Further evidence suggesting that Ivory-billed Woodpeckers exist in Florida. GEOFFREY E. HILL, Dept. Biol. Sci., Auburn Univ., Auburn, AL, DANIEL J. MENNILL, Dept. Biol., Univ. Windsor, Windsor, ON, BRIAN R. ROLEK, RUSTY LIGON, JAMES R. HILL, III, Auburn Univ., KYLE A. SWISTON, KARAN ODOM, Univ. Windsor, and TYLER L. HICKS, Western State Coll., Gunnison, CO.
From Nov 2006 through May 2007 we searched for Ivory-billed Woodpeckers along the Choctawhatchee River in nw. Florida. A team of 13 searchers lived in 2 camps about 15 km apart and intensively searched about 31 km of forested wetlands. Four additional biologists deployed remote listening stations and set and watched the images from 24 remote cameras. This search effort yielded 2 convincing sightings of Ivory-billed Woodpeckers and numerous recordings of putative double knocks and putative kent calls (finally tallies are not available as this abstract is submitted). We will also present a video taken in May 2006 of a bird that has plumage features consistent with Ivory-billed Woodpecker.
As this abstract is being prepared, we do not have definitive evidence for the existence of Ivory-billed
Woodpeckers in Florida.

213 Rolek, Ligon, Hill & Mennill
A comparison of large woodpecker cavity morphology in the Choctawhatchee River bottomlands and other southern forests. BRIAN W ROLEK, RUSSELL LIGON, GEOFFREY HILL, Dept. Biol., Auburn Univ., Auburn, AL, and DANIEL J. MENNILL, Dept. Biol. Univ. Windsor, Windsor, ON.
The existence of Ivory-billed Woodpeckers in the forested wetlands along the Choctawhatchee River is supported by sight records, sound recordings, bark scaling, and large cavities reported to be larger than the cavities excavated by Pileated Woodpeckers. The assertion that cavities in this area are larger than expected in forest in the se. U.S. is supported by scant data. We compared the morphology and size of cavities measured near the Choctawhatchee River to cavities measured in Alabama and Georgia. We found that cavities measured along the Choctawhatchee River average larger in entrance height and width and have a greater maximum size. These findings support the claims that Ivory-billed Woodpeckers reside within the floodplain of the Choctawhatchee River.

214 Noel & Bednarz
Breeding ecology of the Pileated Woodpecker in eastern Arkansas. BRANDON L. NOEL and JAMES C. BEDNARZ, Dept. Biol. Sci., Arkansas State Univ., State University, AR.
One significant obstacle to the recovery of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker (IBWO) is the lack of information about this species biology and ecology in the bottomland hardwood forests and swamps of eastern Arkansas, Florida, and elsewhere in the se. U.S. Given the dire conservation situation of this species, and extreme void in our knowledge of its biology and ecology, we have begun an intensive 4-yr study on the foraging and breeding ecology of the Pileated Woodpecker (PIWO) in the Big Woods area to provide reliable data on large woodpecker ecology in the bottomland habitats of eastern Arkansas that can be used to make management decisions and possibly prevent the extinction of the IBWO. Contrary to historical observations at the Singer Tract, where IBWOs used higher bottoms associated with sweetgum and oak tree species, the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology recently recorded IBWOs in the lower bottomland habitats. Therefore, we are comparing habitat use ecology of PIWOs in both the cypress-tupelo swamps (low bottoms) versus the sweetgum-oak hardwood (high bottoms) bottomland areas. Specifically, we are comparing home-range sizes, feeding rates at nests, reproductive success, and survival. Preliminary results will be presented.

215 Cooper, Mordecai, Conroy, Peterson, Moore & Mattsson
Design and implementation of a region-wide search for the Ivory-billed Woodpecker with the objective of estimating occupancy and related parameters. ROBERT J. COOPER, RUA S. MORDECAI, Univ. Georgia, Athens, GA, MICHAEL J. CONROY, JAMES T. PETERSON, USGS Georgia Coop. Fish &
Wildl. Res. Unit and Univ. Georgia, CLINTON T. MOORE, Patuxent Wildl. Res. Center, Univ. Georgia, and BRADY J. MATTSSON, Univ. Georgia.
Until recently, the search for the Ivory-billed Woodpecker mostly focused on relatively few areas that are believed to have the greatest probability of containing the bird (best areas). A major problem associated with only searching the best areas is that, because of a lack of randomization, it is not possible to build predictive habitat and population models, or learn in a systematic, repeatable way from the data collected how to improve the search. We describe a survey design, which was implemented in 2006 - 2007, for the search effort that will (1) allow estimation of occupancy, use, and detection probability for habitats at multiple spatial scales within the species* former range, and (2) assess relationships between occupancy, use and habitat characteristics at those scales. The design features randomization of search locations weighted by prior belief of their suitability and results from prior searches, such that most but not all effort is still expended in the best locations. Data are being entered into a web-accessible central database that will allow frequent model updating in an adaptive framework. We view this approach as a template for developing occupancy-based surveys of other rare species.

A sentence from MSNBC/Newsweek

An excerpt from this article:

...(Once the largest woodpecker in North America, the ivory-billed model is thought to have been extinct since 1943, though a grainy, four-second video showing what some say is the bird shot in Arkansas in 2004 has raised new hope among some birders.)

More from Mennill

Here.

Update: Note the IBWO emphasis for many of Mennill's "current" students here, then note that the IBWO is not even mentioned in this page about grad student opportunities with Mennill for 2008.

Presentation by Leah Filo

An excerpt from this blog post:

Presentation - Ivory Billed Woodpecker Research
On Wednesday June 27, 1:00 in The Wild Center’s Flammer Theater there will be a feature presentation about the Ivory Billed woodpecker. Wild Center Biologist Leah Filo will explain her fascinating bird research through the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology. Her field research focus was in helping to document the existence of this once thought to be extinct bird. The program is free for members and the general public. Refreshments will be served.

Email from Bill Pranty

Over the weekend, I emailed ABA Checklist Committee chairman Bill Pranty to ask about the official ABA status for the Ivory-bill.

With Bill's permission, I'm posting his reply here (dated today, 7/1/07):

The ABA Checklist Committee formally agreed several months ago to not review any purported sighting of an Ivory-billed Woodpecker within the ABA Area (Canada and the continental US) unless the evidence provided with the sighting is irrefutable.

The Ivory-billed Woodpecker is considered a "Code 6" bird, which means that is is extinct, or probably extinct, or at least extirpated from the ABA Area.

We have chosen to maintain this category unless evidence to change the code is overwhelming .


Best regards,

Bill
--
Bill Pranty
ABA Checklist Committee chair

"I believe a horrible mistake has been made"

From The Tweeters List:

Subject: Local Guy Who Searched for Ivory-bills
...
Date: Sat, 30 Jun 2007 22:36:57 -0700

Hello, since I am a local guy who spent 2 stints searching for Ivory-billed Woodpeckers, I figured I owed at least a brief synopsis.
In 2006 I was in Arkansas, at the heart of things. I found the white Pileated that got press.
I heard exceedingly interesting "kent" calls.
In 2007 I was in the Congaree in South Carolina, perhaps the most hopeful spot of all for the Ivory-bill's continued existence.
I found hugely "interesting cavities".
Long story short.... I searched hard all day, everyday. I have immersed myself in Ivory-billed literature, I have absorbed everything I could while privy to the confidential information; I believe a horrible mistake has been made.
The "proof" video to me quite, quite obviously shows a Pileated.
I will continue to search my heart out, but I have no confidence at all that the Ivory-billed Woodpecker persists in North America.
I was so excited. The opposite is true now.
...