Wednesday, August 31, 2005

More detail on the IBWO's noisy flight

Previously, I posted a bit about the Ivory-bill's noisy flight.

Here's some more detail from the late James Tanner, from page 58 of "The Ivory-billed Woodpecker":
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The wing-feathers of Ivory-bills are stiff and hard, thus making their flight noisy. In the initial flight, when the wings are beaten particularly hard, they make quite a loud, wooden, fluttering sound, so much so that I often nicknamed the birds 'wooden-wings'; it is the loudest wing sound I have ever heard from any bird of that size except the grouse. At times when the birds happened to swoop past me, I heard a pronounced swishing whistle.
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I realize that you'd be unlikely to hear a wing sound while glimpsing a bird at 100 meters or so, as in most of the "robust sightings". However, in some cases, the "ivory-bill" flushed at fairly close range. I don't see that anyone ever mentioned hearing this distinctive wing sound. Of course, this is only one of many troubling omissions in Cornell's sight records.