As mentioned in the Part One of this trip report, I was alone in the search area from March 31st to April 2nd. Frank Wiley joined me from April 3rd-5th. He had a very robust, brief sighting on the morning of the 3rd, and we had a possible auditory encounter on the 4th. Conditions changed dramatically over the course of the week, and by the 4th, leaf-out had progressed to the point where examining tall trees for cavities and scaling had become very difficult. Weather conditions were generally good, although winds were high for much of the time. It rained heavily on the night of 3rd, and all we did on the 5th was set up a trail cam.

March 31, 2015

I hiked into what we now think is a hot zone and worked my way south, finding approximately a dozen downed sweet gums and the standing sapling that had been heavily stripped of bark. I did several playbacks and got reactions from pileateds and red-bellieds – calling and drumming but not attractions. I called it a day when I found a secondary feather that I suspected might come from an ivorybill. It seemed large for a red-headed and was white, except for the base, which was black on both sides. I bagged the feather and hiked back out. Upon examination, it became clear that it was indeed a RHWO feather; the differences are subtle. The innermost secondary of the Agey and Heinzmann feather, which has been confirmed as an innermost ivorybill secondary, is 3.5” long (thanks to Fredrik Bryntesson for providing the information on this feather, which comes from a letter from Heinzmann to Wetmore) and is all white. I have seen an ivorybill secondary that is 4.25″, though I’m not sure of the number. It had black on one side. The difference is a very fine one, especially since the innermost RHWO secondaries also have black on one side and white on the other. This was false alarm, but better safe than sorry. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Feather Atlas is a great resource; I only wish that it included the ivorybill.

April 1, 2015

To my relief, nothing much of consequence happened on April Fools Day. I returned to the same area and did several playbacks over the course of the morning, generating increased drumming and calling from pileateds, red-bellieds, and red-headeds. The playbacks also seemed to cause Barred Owls and American Crows to vocalize, and after one series at 9:00 am, two crows came in silently to investigate and then called a little. I also found the “chopped” sweet gum sapling that day; it was within a hundred yards of the scaled sapling, in an area where there was an abundance of work on sweet gums.

April 2, 2015

I visited three other locations. I began with the area where I found a concentration of bark scaling in 2012 and where I recorded calls in 2013 and where the tree on the homepage is located. The hydrology in this area has changed considerably for several reasons, and I saw nothing of interest. I did encounter a couple of large moccasins. Playbacks provoked some reactions from pileateds and red-bellieds. Strangely enough, the pileated did not respond to PIWO playbacks.

I then went to another patch where there have been contacts over the years, and where we found a heavily scaled downed sweet gum last spring. There has been no further work on that tree, and the decay has progressed to the point where the bark is loose and Bess beetles, skinks, and slugs are residing underneath. This tree has now been down for between between one and two years, and the twigs and small branches are starting to fall away. The bark too is getting looser.

Impressionistically, this is quite consistent with Tanner’s characterization of the decay process. We suspect that this lack of return visits is typical of ivorybill feeding behavior, since we’ve monitored multiple feeding trees and have seen this pattern repeatedly. In one case, the small scaled oak in the old search area, there was one round of scaling found in January and a second in May or June, but in all the other monitored trees have been scaled once and that’s all. In my experience pileateds typically return to feeding trees on a fairly regular basis, and in the case of this particular tree, there’s obviously an abundant food supply under the bark.

April 3, 2015

Frank and I hiked into the ‘hot zone’. We did some playbacks at approximately 8 am, although I did not record anything about them in my notes. We proceeded in a more or less southerly direction with Frank in the lead by about 10 yards; I was walking slowly and looking up and to my right. As we approached a body of water, Frank stopped and blurted something unintelligible. I caught up with him, and he said he had gotten a very good look at a male Ivory-billed Woodpecker that had flushed, presumably from a fallen log lying in the water or possibly from water’s edge. The distance was no more than 20 yards. I handed Frank my field book so that he could draw what he saw and record his observations. I’ve included the sketch and transcribed his description, with a few redactions related to the specific location. These were done immediately after the sighting and without reference to a field guide. Not included in the description is his estimate that the sighting lasted 2-3 seconds, as the bird, which was in the open for perhaps 10 yards (we’ll measure this distance at the next opportunity), flew upward into an opening in the woods across the water, and in his excitement, he mistakenly gave the date as April 4. 

1. Big traffic cone shaped WHITE bill (3”ish?)
2. Solid black head/face – light colored eye (whiteish)
3. Bright red crimson crest puffed up not what you’d expect.
4. Stripe on face beginning behind.
5. Stripes on back form chevron over rump.
6. Wings long/thin shallow rapid flaps.
7. Rear 1/3 to 1/2 of wings white, all the way out to primaries.
8. Long tapered tail.

Later that day in an email exchange, we added the following comments.

Frank:

“At the first sign of movement, I assumed a Wood Duck had flushed, looked in that direction, and immediately saw the crimson red of the crest. I then thought, “PIWO” but noticed the big white traffic cone bill, and an almost entirely black face. There was a white stripe that started below/behind the light (I got the impression of white – not yellow) colored eye. The crest was not “groomed” as is usually seen in most of the artwork – rather it was puffed up as if the bird were agitated.”

Me:

“I just have a few things to add to this. I was about 30 feet behind Frank and was looking in the opposite direction, so I didn’t see it. Frank kind of blurted something, and when I got to him, he was clearly and deeply shocked and absolutely sure of what he saw. I told him to sketch it and then write a description. I didn’t hear any splashing or wood duck sounds, and I’m sure I would have if it had been a duck. He mentioned that he didn’t think the bird was terribly frightened and had probably flushed due to the sound of something approaching, since he was likely out of view.  We were approaching the area where I found a concentration of bark scaling, including both the hatchet sapling and the other scaled one I found on Tuesday. (A better photo and a detail of a worked exit tunnel on that one are attached) and were perhaps 100 yards away. I had not mentioned this to Frank until after the sighting. It’s also not at all far from the cluster of old cavities we found last spring. I guessed that the bird was drinking from the creek, and we are contemplating putting a camera on the log, in the event that it’s a place that might be a preferred spot.” The only other item of note on the third was our finding an interesting looking old cavity in a fallen sweet gum. Though partially healed over, it appears to have been quite large when fresh, at least 6″x4″ and the area beneath it had been stripped of bark.

April 4, 2015

We returned to the same general area on the morning of the 4th, covering a lot of territory and finding more scaling on downed sweet gums. At approximately 11 am, we heard a loud knock or knocks. Frank heard a softer first knock and a much louder second one. I only heard the second, but it was loud, sharp, and woody. It’s worth noting that though louder second knocks are unusual, they are by no means unheard of . . . “the second blow is louder in 21 out of 119 recorded examples of double-rap displays by seven Campephilus species we studied . . .” The knock or double knock had come from the northeast.

We decided to do some playback, after which we heard two more possible double knocks in close succession, now from the west. I was not overly impressed by these, feeling they somehow lacked the energy I associate with really good knocks. Frank agreed about the first but thought the second was as good as any he’s heard. Slight differences in perception like these are not at all uncommon in our experience.

April 5, 2015

On the morning of the 5th, we went out to place a trail camera where Frank had his sighting. We’re hopeful that this new higher resolution camera will provide unambiguous results. It’s worth noting that we flushed a Pileated Woodpecker from virtually the same spot and from a similar distance as we approached the water. There was no mistaking it, and within a roughy similar time frame, and with a virtually identical flight path, it was possible to note an equivalent number of field marks, including the facial pattern; we agree that this pileated appeared to be a female. Weather and lighting conditions on both days were similar with overcast skies, perhaps slightly darker on the morning of the 5th.