Although it is thematically quite different, this series of posts is rooted in my recent reexamination of my feeding sign hypothesis that culminates here. It was also inspired by my recent and much closer look at Tanner and the Singer Tract, new insights gleaned from old material, and the input of others that shaped the […]
I flew into Houston on February 4 and arrived at the search area on the morning of the 5th. Frank’s work schedule had precluded him from returning to the search area during my absence, and he was unable to get time off to join me this trip. Tommy Michot visited on the February 5th; we […]
Careful examination of bark chips found in conjunction with extensive scaling is one of the key elements in our diagnostic gestalt, but “chips”, a term I’ve been using for years, is both inaccurate and too vague for what we believe is being left behind by Ivory-billed Woodpeckers and for differentiating it from the leavings of […]
The first two installments in this series, which was inspired by the discovery that squirrels are doing some of the bark scaling in our search area, are here and here. This installment will consider the appearance of the scaling itself, and the next will focus on pieces of bark; “chips” no longer feels sufficient to describe […]
Part 1 of this series is here, and the event that led to my writing it is discussed here. I now expect to write 2-3 additional posts on this topic and may create a new page that summarizes the whole series. I’ve hidden the Bark Scaling Gallery page to be reworked later or incorporated into […]
I thought it was important to post the following advance of writing a comprehensive trip report. On arriving in the search area last week, I found fresh scaling on a downed, recently dead sweet gum. The tree was relatively small, with a DBH of under two feet, and was alongside one of the roads that pass […]
Update: This post includes hard data about the extent of old growth in the Singer Tract (scroll down past all photographs) and in ivorybill home ranges. The general points made below remain valid, although some of the wording is perhaps too strong; Tanner overestimated the amount of old growth in the Tract ( at “over […]
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 […]
This post will be something of a departure from previous ones in that we’re writing it jointly. Though we met in 2008 and started calling our effort “Project Coyote” in early 2010, in many ways this week marks the 6th anniversary of our collaboration. It was the first time we visited the old search area […]
Frank and a visiting ornithologist spent this past weekend in our search area. I’m eager to read and will be posting Frank’s report before long. For now, suffice it to say they set up three trail cams, one on the snag where we captured the image discussed here and here and one on this downed sweet gum […]
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