MAX BLAKE SENT THIS ALONG

The case of the ivorybilled woodpecker is still one of the more contentious ones in modern zoology. Is it extinct? Has it been extinct since the 1950s? Was it rediscovered in Arkansas in 2005? Or was it all a colossal con by environmentalists wanting to find a sure-fire way to protect an area of swamp bottom that was otherwise likely to be raped by logging companies? Don't get us wrong: if it was the latter, more power to their elbow, because in many cases the end certainly does justify the means.

Young Max recently found a blog about the bird and sent it to us with his recommendations.

http://ivorybills.blogspot.com/

IVORY BILLED WOODPECKER

John W. Fitzpatrick, Director of the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology at Cornell University discusses the rediscovery of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker and the various questions that have been raised as to authenticity of the rediscovery. He played video and audio clips dealing with the rediscovery that had never been shown or played publicly. Fitzpatrick also dealt with the broader issues of species protection and conservation and noted the future field research that will be done in order to more fully determine that the Ivory-billed Woodpecker has indeed come back from supposed extinction.

BIRDCHICK WITH AN IVORY BILL

http://www.birdchick.com/wp/2009/04/birdchick-podcast-2-ivory-billed-woodpecker/



As everybody knows, I am a great fan of Sharon the Birdchick, and so it is always an added pleasure to be able to give her blog a plug when she has an entry of cryptozoological interest. In her latest podcast she talks about her personal involvement in the hunt for the ivory billed woodpecker, and jolly interesting it is too..

ANOTHER SUPPOSEDLY EXTINCT WOODPECKER

Everyone has heard of the ivory-billed woodpecker, which featured in yesterday's bloggo. But far fewer people know of its close relative from south of the boarder. The imperial woodpecker (Campephilus imperialis) was even bigger than the ivory billed at 23 inches long. It was he world’s biggest woodpecker. It was found only in the Sierra Madre and the Central Volcanic Belt in Mexico.

They were black white feathers on their wings with black crests. The male had red sides to his crest. The crests curled more than those of the ivory bill. The imperial woodpecker fed by ripping up the bark of dead pines to find burrowing insects and there lava. They like old growth montane forest made up of pines like the Durango, Mexican white, Montezuma and the wonderfully named loblolly pine. They would also feed from oaks.

The imperial woodpecker is believed to have become extinct in the 1950s due to deforestation of its home range as well as hunting both adult birds and chicks for food and quack medicines. Since the 1950s there have been only a handful of sightings. The last know individual was shot in 1959. The last sighting was in 2005.

Most of this bird’s original habitat has gone. Chances of its survival do not look good. But then again we thought that about the great ivory bill.

The Ivorybilled debate rumbles on

http://www.birdchick.com/2009/03/ghost-bird-movie.html

As regular readers will know, I am very fond of the Birdchick Blog of the delightful Sharon Stiteler, and I felt unreasonably guilty the other day when we knocked her down a place on the leader board of the Nature Blog Network . I read her blog with my naturalist hat on, rather than my cryptozoological one, but occasionally she throws up a crypto gem like this remarkable overview of the politics surrounding the supposed rediscovery of the ivorybilled woodpecker.

As any fule kno, this magnificent bird was generally believed to be extinct from the late 1940s. However intermittent sightings, most recently (and most celebratedly) in 2004/5 in Arkansas have left a bloody big question mark over its status.

I still remember Richard telephoning me in the middle of the night, on the day that the CFZ expedition left for Mongolia. I was fast asleep, but soon woke up when Richard gave me the news that - to quote Wikipedia - "A group of seventeen authors headed by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology reported the discovery of at least one Ivory-billed Woodpecker, a male, in the Big Woods area of Arkansas in 2004 and 2005, publishing the report in the journal Science on April 28, 2005 (Fitzpatrick et al., 2005).

One of the authors, who was kayaking in the Cache River National Wildlife Refuge, Monroe County, Arkansas, on February 11, 2004, reported on a website the sighting of an unusually large red-crested woodpecker. This report led to more intensive searches in the area and in the White River National Wildlife Refuge, undertaken in secrecy for fear of a stampede of bird-watchers, by experienced observers over the next fourteen months. About fifteen sightings occurred during the period (seven of which were considered compelling enough to mention in the scientific article), possibly all of the same bird. One of these more reliable sightings was on February 27, 2004. Bobby Harrison of Huntsville, Alabama and Tim Gallagher of Ithaca, New York, both reported seeing an ivory-billed woodpecker at the same time. The secrecy of the search permitted The Nature Conservancy and Cornell University to quietly buy up Ivory-billed habitat to add to the 120,000 acres (490 km²) of the Big Woods protected by the Conservancy".

This is all very well and good, but subsequent events have not done anything to confirm the continiued existence of this enigmatic bird. Sharon gives us an insight into the political machinations surrounding these events, and I strongly urge all CFZ Bloggofolk to go and take a look.

In the meantime, here for your delectation, is a song about the woodpecker from the rather excellent Sufjan Stevens:

Ivory Bill News

http://www.birdchick.com/2009/03/david-sibley-birdchick-its-on.html



As regular readers will know, I am a fan of Sharon - the birdchick who writes the blog of the same name which is always several places above us on the Nature Blogs Netword. In fact I think that I can truthfully say that she and Darren (TetZoo) are my two favourite blogs on the network.

She has some interesting news about a documentary about the Ivory Billed Woodpecker, and links to some trailers for it. I seriously suggest that it is worth having a look...

WANDERING ABOUT ON THE NATURE BLOG NETWORK

Last night I was quite unwell, and so I lay in bed, drinking brandy and coke, cuddling Spider the cat, and pootling about aimlessly on the internet. As regular readers will know we joined the Nature Blogs Network a few days ago, and I soent a happy couple of hours browsing some of our fellow blogs.

I found several of cryptozoological interest, so, just as a taster, here are just a couple of crypto-related bloggybits I found..

Ivory-bills Live!

By April 30 of this year it will be 4 years since Cornell made their incredible announcement beginning this long, bumpy, winding journey. Essentially, there are about 4 months left to move the Ivory-bill agenda forward. If nothing is found in these 4 months more substantial than what is already on record in support of Ivory-bill persistence, then official searching, funding, and most interest will die a solemn death (independent searchers will carry on their efforts as money and time allows). More individual sightings, blurry video, and auditory recordings won't do (so proclaimeth from on-high the skeptically-inclined). An indisputable photo or carcass are needed .....

Lord Geekington on architeuthis

I was under the impression that just about every (non-Nautilus) cephalopod has a life history which involves growing at a blazing speed, reproducing, and then dying in about a year or two. The implications of such an ephemeral lifestyle on the growth of giant cephalopods is staggering, although it is possible that giants have a considerably longer lifespan than the norm.