Frank Wiley and I have spent the past four days in our search area, beginning on Thanksgiving morning. Before getting into the details, it merits noting that this weekend is the probably the peak of deer season in Louisiana. On Thanksgiving, there were perhaps fifteen or twenty people hunting on the edges of the habitat […]
In a 1936 letter to James Tanner before Tanner began his survey of possible ivorybill habitat in the southeast, Herbert Stoddard wrote, “The area where they (Ivory-billed Woodpeckers) may occur at present is simply tremendous, not restricted as many believe.” Stoddard continued, “. . . if I had the rest of my life for the […]
When I began blogging on WordPress, I mentioned that I’d be posting sound clips from our old search area that were available on the old Project Coyote site, but I’ve been somewhat undecided about it and wasn’t sure I could track down all the material, a problem I’ve now solved. The most interesting audio was […]
A couple have people have written to say they’re having difficulty hearing the calls on the raw clips from March 2, 2013. I’m posting an amplified version of the morning first clip. The clarinet toots and rustling will be quite loud, but the calls are definitely much easier to hear. In addition to the calls […]
Note: Based on thousands of hours of reviewing and analyzing field recordings, I now think these sounds are squirrel vocalizations. In my experience, Eastern grey squirrels are the most challenging confusion species, both in the field and on sonograms. Modest attenuation by distance can make them sound quite ivorybill like, and fundamental frequencies can sometimes […]
I returned to the Project Coyote search area from January 4-11 and was joined by Frank Wiley for all but one day, Steve Pagans (a retired forester, birder, and Project Coyote team member) for two days, and several ornithologists/field biologists between January 7-11. Some of our guests had intriguing auditory encounters, several of which involved […]
There may be some value in considering the distribution of the particular type of suspected Ivory-billed Woodpecker foraging sign that I’ve discussed in my recent posts. For the purposes of this analysis, I will limit myself to one very narrow category of bark scaling: extensive work done on the boles of live or recently dead […]
A poster on the Ivory-billed Woodpeckerl Researchers Forum raised a couple of questions about sightings and their quality, and about our encounter rate. I thought I’d take this opportunity to respond here. A number of people have had possible sightings in this area. Quality is a subjective term, but […]
I just returned from another visit to the new Project Coyote search area. I have a book coming out in February and will be unavailable during what’s typically considered peak search season. I plan to make 2-3 more trips between now and mid-January. Frank Wiley’s work responsibilities have kept him out of the field since […]
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