IBWO excuses:
Area too vast--not enough searchers
Too many searchers--IBWO scared off
Area too remote--not enough searchers
Area not remote enough--IBWO scared off by traffic (I-40), hunters, fisherman, four-wheelers
Bird too wary, spooked by searchers (but not by traffic, hunters, fisherman, four-wheelers)
Bird too wary, suddenly spooked by traffic, hunters, fisherman, four-wheelers that have been present for decades
Bird won't sit still, always just flies by
(Exceptions: Kullivan, Sparling, Hicks, Scott)
Bird always hops to other side of tree
Bird hops into roost hole during day upon encountering searchers
Too little water--makes tromping through swamp forest noisy (a boat would be better)
Floods--make tromping through swamp forest difficult, so must use boat, limiting access (walking would be better)
IBWO must be dead now--shot by hunters annoyed by searchers
IBWO must be dead now--hit by truck on I-40 (or I-10, ...)
(It WAS alive until we saw it and published our GREAT papers, but now it's dead, so too bad if you want to see it. Ha, ha!)
****
No photo excuses:
camera slow to start up
auto-focus chose branches, canoe paddles, etc., instead of IBWO (Hicks, etc.)
Camera left on seat of car (Scott)
Camera left in backpack (Kullivan, LaBranche)
Bird too wary of anyone with camera, unless it is off, out of focus, or left on car seat or in backpack (See stories of: LaBranche, Hicks, Scott, Kullivan)
IBWO wary of automated cameras, so Pileateds are able to sneak in and work on areas stripped of bark by IBWO. (Those sneaky Pileateds.)
IBWO wary of automated cameras, so Pileateds, squirrels, Red-headed Woodpeckers, raccoons, etc., are able to sneak in and use "A-holes" drilled by IBWO.
***
No calls, or wrong calls excuses
Noisy birds shot out years ago, now only mute IBWO survive
(Except IBWO call for ARU's and Blue Jays all the time.)
Blue Jays make kent calls because they have heard IBWO for years--thus proof of IBWO existence.
No nuthatches present in study area (known with 100% confidence), so we know any kent-like calls are made by IBWO.
No Blue Jays present in study area (known with 100% confidence), so we know any kent-like calls are made by IBWO.
OK, so some Blue Jays present in study area, but their kent calls are clearly imitations of all the IBWO's in the study area. (See above.)
But IBWO's are now mute, OOPS. Except for when (non-existent) Blue Jays are present. Except for when ARU's are present and working...
Better excuse. IBWO's are mute when they are being seen--they now must call only from within an A-hole, therefore undetectable visually, or when a Blue Jay pokes its head into the A-hole, or maybe a Nuthatch.
A radical new hypothesis...
IBWO's now must live inside their A-holes. They must have learned to imitate the begging calls of Pileateds, Squirrels, Nuthatches, and Blue Jays, which provide food to adults and young. Entire generations of IBWO's survive inside these A-holes, and only emerge to fly, briefly, to a vacant A-hole. THIS could explain the data!
Error, error--my brain exploded.
(this was all first posted in the comment section by Patrick Coin)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
17 comments:
What about the excuses that blame the Skeptics for:
- discouraging people from searching
- discouraging agencies from funding searchers
- discouraging people with sightings from reporting
- encouraging the collection of
specimens
I have always liked all of those excuses since they have that grade-school quality of blaming everything on someone else.
Yes, the skeptic excuses are great.
I might add that skeptics get the blame for:
-asking for actual coherent field notes and sketches made at the time of the sighting
-asking for non-ambiguous photographs or video
Oh, and I forgot a couple of the classics in the original list:
Cottonmouths--big ones--scare off birders (but not hunters, fisherman, four-wheelers, and the ever-intrepid searchers)
Mosquitos--millions big ones--drain the blood of birders (but not hunters, fisherman, four-wheelers, and the ever-intrepid searchers)
Possible Additions:
Calls:
- only call during breeding seasons so we missed them. But we expect to hear them _____
a. soon
b. next month
c. next season
d. this spring
Just keep sending money.
- we cannot use playbacks because that would _______
a. disturb the birds
b. not work
c. be unprofessional
Excuses:
- have massive home ranges because of low habitat quality so they do not come to our study area very often.
- we have an entire breeding population (early Hill) vs. birds are rare (current Hill)
- multiple cavities on our research site (early Hill) vs. difficult to find cavities (current Hill)
- cannot obtain feathers or egg shells to conduct genetic testing because
a. might disturb bird in cavity
b. other animals destroy materials
c. we tried but amazingly all of the cavities we call active were empty
d. cavities too high
Quality of Published Articles:
- we felt the "discovery" was so important, even if the data are not up to normal standards
- we are an important journal, we did not publish this paper just for publicity
- we felt it is important to promote discussion
Impacts on Other Species:
- no funding is being diverted
- the bird is iconic (and is more important than an of the thousands of plants/animals needing protection)
- people have the right to donate time/money as they want, it does not affect other projects
- they are rare and they migrate between sites
- they have become nocturnal
Just like a lot of other folks, since the 1940s they have had to alter their family structure, with both parent birds now working two jobs just to make ends meet. That leaves them just too busy to be detected by searchers.
It was easy in the old days because Allen, Tanner, etc. had locals lead them to the nests.
(Aren't there any locals now?)
IBWOs can only be photoed at a nest site, that's why we can't get any photos now.
(Aren't there any nests now?)
They cover vast distances.
(Aren't moving creatures seen more frequently? Don't nests stay fixed for a season?)
We haven't put enough effort into the search.
(Isn't this the greatest, most expensive, most technologically advanced search in the history of birding?)
They are much too wary.
(Warier than wild turkeys, deer, cougars? Wary enough to spot camoed searchers sitting silently in the shadows? Wary enough to evade automatic cameras? Why have they become warier than animals hunted every year?)
We haven't put enough time into the search. We'll have the proof in three months. Three months more. Three more. Next season. In the next few seasons. Within ten years. Likely within the next 60 years.
All these people couldn't have made a mistake, so we already have proof.
(Obviously we don't.)
One excuse for why they can't get good call sequences is that even Tanner said they were very quiet near the nest hole.
Guess what. ALL woodpeckers are much quieter at the nest hole when they have eggs or young so they don't advertise the location to predators. They are noisy as heck for weeks or even months before that while courting and defending territories.
So they should be drumming and calling like mad now or very soon, right? Just like they did for the past several search years, right?
(Review list under "No calls, or wrong calls excuses".)
A passing Pileated and/or Blue Jay ate my field notes.
A bleating fawn ran off with my camera.
A kid on a bicycle with bad brakes made it unsafe to follow the calling IBWO into the woods.
I had to leave the area early to go to:
a) a fund raiser
b) NPR
c) the Explorer's Club
d) see my book agent
e) all of the above
Tom/Patrick
You missed one of my favourites (courtesy of Casey Taylor);
I didn't shoot any video of the bird because my camcorder was in playback mode so that I could listen to the bird as I walked towards it.
Highly trained field observers.....
How about the famous "it was a wandering bird and was here, but it must have moved on" excuse?
On cyberthrush's blog:
"The mobile search team has finished up at Pearl River and is moving on to the Pascagoula River region of Mississippi --- good to hear, as Miss. remains the most under-explored IBWO-likely state, unless much more is going on there than has been publicized."
Should we start a pool on how long it will be before Fishcrow sees IBWO in Mississippi?
How about this excuse:
A. People have probably been seeing the Ivory-bill for decades; they just didn't realize it was anything special.
...coupled with:
B. The Ivory-bill was so spectacular that upon seeing it, people would drop to their knees and shout "Lord God, what a bird!"
We HAVE photos. But you can't see them. It's to protect the birds.
I'm just wondering if you've set foot in the search area. Have YOU seen what the habitat is like and what searching there entails? If you are an avid birder why wouldn't you be supportive? Even if there are no IBWO's it still brings press to an important area...for birds and other wildlife.
A comment above asks:
"If you are an avid birder why wouldn't you be supportive?"
Why wouldn't I be supportive of what? And are you making a distinction between avid and rational birders? Are "avid" birders those who still haven't figured out that "focus thingy" on their camera?
This post and the comments on it catalog the reasons why people who have been out in the habitat can't seem to get evidence that the species exists. Being supportive of people who can only provide excuses rather than evidence just encourages more excuse making.
And if you think that things that "bring press" to something are automatically good then you are essentially saying that all press is good press - whether that press be based on a real "rediscovery" or delusions of people looking for meaning.
"I'm just wondering if you've set foot in the search area. Have YOU seen what the habitat is like and what searching there entails?"
I've spent time floundering around the southern swamps. There isn't one spot there that outdoorsmen don't reach, and it doesn't take Daniel Boone. It's not DIFFICULT to get good photos of this bird, it's IMPOSSIBLE, because beyond a reasonable doubt the bird is long since EXTINCT.
Here's an example of a rare bird, one that actually exists.
http://bbill.blogspot.com/
(Bill, good on you. It's time to come around to our side!)
Notice that, unlike the IBWO, people (at least Bill!) have managed to get many good photos of this single bird, and Sibley's standard for the IBWO of "Redundancy. Repeated sightings by independent observers of birds really well seen." has been met several times over.
In 60+ years, this standard hasn't been met with the IBWO ONCE. Not by Cornell, not by Auburn, not by Collins, NOBODY. And to have survived for sixty years, there must have been dozens of these large, dramatic birds.
That's the difference between real birds and illusory birds.
I'm just wondering if you've set foot in the search area. Have YOU seen what the habitat is like and what searching there entails?
I for one have been in the Choctawhatchee swamps many times over the last 30 years. Not very "remote", as several others have pointed out. Also the Yellow and Pea rivers in the same area. And of course Big Thicket and the Cache River systems on many occasions. I doubt that I am anything special, thousands of outdoor enthusiasts frequent these areas every year for various purposes.
I have also been to Roswell and several areas where Bigfoot and Swamp Apes have been repeatedly sighted but I am not in any big hurry to believe or “support” these people either.
Now, I would suggest that you go back and objectively read the publications, view the pictures and then post something to discuss that supports your obvious believer position.
Post a Comment