If you haven’t done so already, please read Trail Cam Photos Revisited for a more comprehensive discussion of the image that’s central to this post (including an explanation of our conclusion that the mystery bird is larger than a Pileated Woodpecker). At the time of writing, I didn’t envision doing a follow-up, but the nagging sense that the Rhein Imperial Woodpecker film might be even more relevant than I thought initially led me to go through the film again and pull an additional frame that showed the body profile, with neck extended, more fully and accurately. While I added an update to the original post that included a brightened composite for comparison, there’s a bit more to say.
We’re aware that many (perhaps most) in the scientific and birding communities will accept nothing less than a clear, high quality photograph (or series of photographs) or video. We’re also aware that many people will dismiss any post-processing whatsoever, even when intermediate steps are shown and the processing is relatively limited (in this case only involving the removal of motion blur). I must add, as should be evident from the images in this post, my skills with photographic post-processing tools are very limited. (Patricia Johnson, my wife, had to talk me through the rotation of the images in Photoshop.) Nevertheless, we think comparing the de-blurred mystery bird with frames from the Rhein film showing an Imperial Woodpecker in flight with similarly positioned wings makes a compelling case that our mystery bird is indeed an Ivory-billed Woodpecker.
Our choice of location for the game cam deployment was not random. As with this image (from our old search area), which was obtained a week after a sighting in the same location, the camera was deployed in an area where we’d had recent possible contacts – multiple double knocks (scroll to the end of the trip report) heard within a few hundred yards before and during the deployment, about a week before the image was captured. We also recorded an apparent double knock on the day we retrieved the cards. Thus, in both instances there was a close temporal association between a putative encounter and obtaining (at worst) a strongly suggestive trail cam capture. But I digress . . .
To return to the Imperial Woodpecker, these two screen captures are the most salient.
I was unable to find frames in the film that replicate the angle from which the mystery bird was shot. In the first of these two frames, the bird is flying downward and is angled slightly away from the camera, obscuring the bill and foreshortening the neck and tail. The second is a ventral view from behind, and the bird is angled downward. Our mystery bird is ascending and is seen in profile. Nonetheless, the similarities in both the extent of white on the wing and physical structure are striking. This becomes even more apparent when the Imperial frames are rotated and sized to match the mystery bird. Be sure to click on the images to see the full sized versions.
I concluded the previous post by observing, “We realize that this is far from conclusive but can think of few alternative interpretations, all of which are problematic.” Based on the comparison with known stills of the Imperial Woodpecker, I am now firmly convinced that the mystery bird is an Ivory-billed Woodpecker and do not think there’s a reasonable alternative explanation. Frank’s comment was, “People have been executed on far flimsier evidence.”