"Ivory-billed Woodpecker is Extinct, Say Two Teams of Researchers

Say it ain't so! Read more here.

Ivory-billed Woodpecker Post

After posting yesterday about the possible ivory-billed woodpecker sighting I was told by an ornithologist friend of mine that the information is questionable. He told me to go to this blog that explains why. Sorry if I got anyone's hopes up......

Ivory-Billed Woodpecker Sighted and Recorded

ScienceDaily (2011-04-29) -- Scientists working independently in three states have now published articles that report multiple sightings of and various forms of evidence for this elusive species, which is extremely difficult to observe and photograph due to its rarity, wariness, and tendency to roam over wide areas in remote swamp habitat. During two encounters with an Ivory-billed Woodpecker, one researcher heard high-pitched calls that seem to match the description of an alarm call that was reported by James Tanner in the 1930s but was never recorded. ... read full article

Here are links to video taken: 1, 2, 3, 4 (note "peent" call), 5, 6, 7 Some of the video takes a while to load.

Here are links to audio files: 1, 2

Here are readme files for above audio and video: Readme

Ivory-billed Woodpecker Supposedly Photographed

Well it looks like somebody else thinks they saw an ivory-billed woodpecker, and the witness claims to have photos to back it up. Word is that he is talking with his lawyers in order to make sure he gets the credit for the discovery before he shows the photos to anyone. I hope this discovery turns out to be true, but something tells me this is going to go the same way as the story about the guys who claimed to have a Bigfoot body in their freezer. As one person said “extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.”

You can read the press release HERE.

Other sites with this story: (1), (2), (3), (4), (5)

Animal Sign

One thing I'm constantly on the lookout for when I'm in the field is animal sign. Tracks, scat, kill sites, hair, bones, nest sites, scrapes anything that alerts me of what crawls, climbs, digs, flies, runs, nests, dens, etc. in the area I'm exploring. You can learn much about animals by studying what they leave behind.
In the sandy road I find a single canine track in the sand. It measures approximately 2 3/4" long and 2" wide and fits the dimensions and appearance of a coyote track. I have found other coyote sign in this locality such as splintered deer bones and scat. The roads around here are mostly made up of coarse sand and act as excellent track traps. I have also found the tracks of foxes, bobcats, skunks, raccoons, deer, proving the presence of each of these animal in this area.
On the way to my destination I find several small patches of hair on the ground next to the barbed wire fence that runs parallel with the trail I was on. I looked at each barb on the fence and found one that had trapped several hairs matching the ones on the ground. Near the hair on the ground were deer tracks. I speculated that the barb snagged the deer’s hide as it leaped over the fence. Barb wire fences are excellent areas to look for animal sign. It can also snag the hair of other animals in the area such as bobcats, cougars, coyotes, foxes, anything that rubs up against it. It's deliberately set up by scientists studying bears in order to snag hair samples for DNA analysis which enables them to keep track of populations. Enough DNA can be sampled from hairs that will tell the gender, species, and identify the individual. When available Shrikes uses barbed wire fence barbs to impale prey, which serve as food larders. Studying these larders help you understand the diet of these birds.
Not far into the woods I came across a small mound of fresh rabbit scat. Each pellet was about 1/2" in length, and had the appearance of "squashed spheres". They were an earthy green color and consisted of plant material. The strange thing is that normally rabbits only drop one pellet at a time. An accumulation of pellets means that the rabbit for some reason stayed in one place for awhile. Had there been a predator nearby that caused it to freeze on the spot? Scat from animals can provide diet information and as with tracks prove existence in a particular area.
While resting on a log I discovered a hardwood snag that had two nice woodpecker holes about 15 foot up. They were about 1 1/2 feet apart and the lower hole was slightly taller that it was wide which points to a pileated woodpecker, which I see in this area quite often. Most times pileateds will nest in a new cavity each season in a another tree, but at times will excavate another one in the same tree, just above or below the previous one, as with this example. The top hole though has a squarish appearance and I'm thinking what happened here is that a squirrel, which at times nest in old woodpecker cavities, may have gnawed on this hole making it easier to access. There is one other large woodpecker that carves out oval entrance holes of this type, one that there's been lots of talk about lately....the ivory-bill. Though it would be nice I doubt very seriously that an ivory-bill is responsible here, especially due to the habitat it is located in. Ivory-bills prefer remote swampy old growth woods, which is getting scarcer by the day due to forest fragmentation (clearcutting, lumber harvetsing, etc). This spring I plan on setting up my ground blind nearby in hopes of observing what uses these holes. There are several good books on animal sign that I highly recommend by Mark Elbroch- "Mammal Tracks and Sign", "Bird Tracks and Sign", and his new book "Animal Skulls: A Guide To North American Species", and there's also a book by Paul Rezendes "Tracking and the Art of Seeing: How to Read Animal Tracks and Sign". When in the field don't only look for the animal itself, but also for its sign. All you have to do is open your eyes and pay attention. It makes being outdoors that much more interesting.

Ivory-billed Woodpeckers in Florida???

In Volume 1, No. 3 issue of Avian Conservation and Ecology there's an article reporting that during a year of research, a search team has reported the sightings of Ivory-bill woodpeckers, yes woodpeckers, seen in the mature swamp forest in the panhandle of Florida along the Choctawhatchee River. They claim to not only have multiple audio recordings of double knocks and "kent" calls, but of also seeing, on 14 occasions, what they thought were actual ivory-billed woodpeckers. Interesting. As this story gets around many will begin asking, "where's the photographic evidence?" "Where's the video?" Even when a video is captured, as with the Luneau video, unless it is "perfect" it will be intensely scrutinized. So until perfectly clear pictures or video is captured, an active nest or the body of an ivory-bill is found it will still be up in the air as to whether or not it still exists. I for one hope it does......
To read this very interesting article go here.

Ivory-bill or Pileated Woodpecker??

Experts are still debating as to whether or not the M. David Luneau Jr. video taken at the Cache River National Wildlife Refuge in Arkansas, on 25 April 2004 is for sure an Ivory-billed Woodpecker. David Sibley, a renowned and respected birder who published The Sibley Guide to Birds, along with 3 ornithologists are debating the topic with experts from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in two seperate articles published in the March 17, 2006 issue of Science. Sibley and others feel that it is a pileated woodpecker and not an Ivory-bill in flight and that "the video evidence does not demonstrate that the species persists in the United States". Scientists from Cornell believe it to be an ivory-bill in the video and say claims made that it is a pileated "are based on misrepresentations of a pileated's underwing pattern, interpretation of video artifacts as plumage pattern, and inacurate models of takeoff and flight behavior". Experts on both sides, people who really know birds....so who do you believe? I continue to hope that the 14 member Cornell Lab team that is at this time in the area where this video was taken will come up with more evidence that the ivory-bill still exists. Until then all we can do is wait. To see a very extensive study of the sighting and the video by Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology go here.