Hickory Scaling

Yesterday, Phil Vanbergen visited the search area and found fresh scaling of the kind I think is diagnostic for Ivory-billed Woodpecker on a hickory. This is an exciting development because we found no fresh work of this type last season. While Phil was unable to get to the base of the tree to examine the […]

Bark: An Exegesis

Introduction: According to Tanner, scaling bark was the Ivory-billed Woodpecker’s primary foraging strategy during breeding season in Louisiana. Tanner wrote that the ivorybill is “capable of easily scaling away heavy bark that other woodpeckers could not loosen.” (Tanner 1942). All woodpeckers in genus Campephilus have specific anatomical characteristics that enable them to forage in this […]

Frank Wiley Hospitalized

Two weeks ago, Frank went into the hospital. About two days after admission, he was taken to the ICU with a systemic infection. He started showing signs of improvement on Monday this week and was able to go off the ventilator as of yesterday. (I was there from Tuesday 1/24-Tuesday 1/31.) I know Frank to be […]