Note: this is a very image-heavy post, and most of them appear ‘below the fold’. Although we faced significant challenges during this trip, it was nonetheless a very productive one. I was joined by John Henry, the photographer who was with me when I recorded kent-like calls in March 2013. Work obligations kept Frank Wiley […]
This post is inspired in large part by an exchange of emails with Chris Sharpe, an ornithologist who is working on an IBWO literature review. Our correspondence revolved around the IUCN’s species account, which describes the ivorybill as “possibly extinct” and cites recent statistical analyses that suggest extinction is likely, as well as one that […]
I have been re-reading George Lamb’s 1957 report on the Cuban Ivory-billed Woodpecker. A number of items struck me as potentially significant for North American searchers, some for how they diverge from Tanner and others for their level of detail. Since this report is likely unfamiliar to many, I thought I’d do a quick post […]
I’ll be returning to Louisiana in late February and hope to make a couple of more trips during peak search season. Frank has retrieved the cards from our game cams and is in the process of going through several weeks of images. In contrast to the last set, there have been no intriguing hits thus […]
Weather conditions were poor for a good part of this trip, but we did the best we could under the circumstances. I flew from New York to Louisiana on Christmas Day. During a layover in Dallas, I was uninterested in the food offerings in the terminal from which my puddle-jumper flight was slated to depart. […]
As most readers know, I have been very focused on feeding sign, and specifically on bark scaling, for several years and believe I have identified a diagnostic type of work that is beyond the physical capacity of any other woodpecker species. I have been far less focused on excavation because I was convinced that there was […]
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 this post, I compared scaling on sweet gums in our search area with images of scaling on sweet gums taken by Martjan Lammertink in Congaree National Park; he has graciously granted me permission to post those images and some others here. The focus of the original post was on the direct comparison between known […]
I’d like to address an interesting post from “Sidewinder” on the Ivory-billed Woodpecker Researchers’ Forum on the rapid evolution question. His key points: “Cyberthrush and others have suggested that natural selection has favored high levels of wariness and human avoidance in the IBWO. This position assumes that the change has a genetic rather than experiential […]
Cyberthrush’s blog has been an important resource for people with an interest in the IBWO for nearly a decade. I’ve agreed with him at times and have taken strong issue with him at others. His latest post falls into the latter category and strikes me as being somewhat irresponsible; it’s worthy of submission to The […]
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