Digging Deeper into Tanner, Part 3 of 3 – Prey Species

Part 1 is here. Part 2 is here. At an IBWO Recovery Team meeting during 2007, a report was shared by Dr. Nathan Schiff and his colleagues at the USDA Forest Service’s Southern Hardwoods Laboratory that more formally described many of the paradoxes that have been discussed in this series of posts. It provides more […]

Tanner and Population Density

I recently gave a talk to the Rockland County Audubon Society, and a member raised what I think is the strongest question about our evidence and about the persistence of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker in general. “How could the species have survived in such low numbers and at such low densities?” In other posts, we’ve pointed […]

Some Thoughts on The Ivorybill’s Decline

Jamie Hill, who has worked with the Cornell and Auburn teams, recently posted a Facebook link to a very interesting article from the September 2014 issue of Smithsonian. Ivory-billed Woodpecker aside, the piece is well worth reading, but for the purposes of this blog, the article got me thinking about reasons for the ivorybill’s decline and […]

A Few More Thoughts on the Fielding Lewis Photos

I thought I’d address a couple of comments from ibwo.net written in response to the recent post on sightings and evidence from 1944-2003. Duck Stamp reminded me that Lewis’s story and identity were revealed in Tim Gallagher’s The Grail Bird, and Houston pointed out John Fitzpatrick’s discussion of the images in a presentation on the rediscovery. As far […]