Hyperion380
Tuesday 21st November 2006, 19:31
Hello All,
My name is Michael Taylor, 40 years old & I currently reside in remote Trinity County, Northern California. For the last 15 years, I have been bushwhacking in my free time through the redwood forests of Humboldt and Mendocino Counties of Northern Cal searching for the tallest trees. I successfully found it in 1996 and again this last Summer on July 1st and again on August 25. The new tallest trees were officially climbed and measured by direct tape drop on Sept 16th-7th. The tree names and heights are Helios and Hyperion, and they stand 375.3' & 379.1' respectively. My true passion is looking for the biggest and tallest trees of each spieces. I recently went to Victoria Australia in search of the tallest and largest eucalyptus. Awesome place ! I have lately become interested in locating the biggest, gnarliest taxodium (Bald Cypress) .. Magnificent and Ancient tree for sure. In addition to this, I have become extremely interested in both seeing and photographing an Ivory Billed Woodpecker. At this point, the skeptics are really starting to annoy me. In light of new and overwhelming evidence, they still claim the bird is extinct. They are basically calling a lot of very credible and honest people liars and lunatics. They are also being extremely pompous to assume mankind has fully explored every square mile of every bottomland forest. Additoinally, the ivory bill never escaped detection after the 1944 Tanner sightings as it was seen occassionally by humans and frequently reported...always to be discredited by another skeptics who generally never bothered to go out and look for the bird. I predict at least one extremely high quality video or photograph will emerge within the next 8 months and the matter will be settled. The skeptics will eat crow in the end.
It is also my opinion that most people, whether it be amatuer birder or ornithologist...those whom are in decent health and really make a serious effort to find and to see an ivory bill....i.e...follow up on good leads from the blog sites...listen to the expert's advice and to those who have seen it before etc.... The people who do this and who are persistent and never give up, will likely see one. I am one of those people. I plan to aggressively search for this bird early next year, 2007. I intend to not only see one, but to also obtain a high quality video image...if i am lucky enough of course ! I don't care about making $$ or being famous. My main objective is to prove it's existence so they stop logging all those beautiful bottomland forests, thus giving the IBWO's a chance to survive an possibly even thrive.
The last few days, I have also been doing a lot of exploring of the FL panhandle using the internet by terraserver-usa and also google-earth...amazing free services ! The entire Choctawhatchee Basin below Highway 10 is mostly intact and the trees are obviously very mature with average canopy height around the waters edges that approach 100 feet. One section North of East Island has an average canopy height of 120 feet with several large crowns casting shadows at least 130 feet long over the water's edge..See terraserver link of this aerial picture..
http://www.terraserver-usa.com/image.aspx?T=1&S=10&Z=16&X=3006&Y=16842&W=3&qs=%7cchoctawhatchee%7cfl+++bradwell+day+topo
. The angle of the sun was about 45 degrees at the time of photograph and I can see 3 enormous tree crowns when zooming into the 1m resolution, the maximum resolution terra-serrver will provide. Using trigonometry, a tree's shadow is about equal to it's height when the sun is at a 45 degree angle above the horizon. The shadows of each of these particular trees are about 45 yards long. When I zoom to 1m at the river edges, there are some places were the trees obviously have enormous crowns and shadows that project over the water. Please take not of the small sub-island just north of East Island. There is a channel there to the north 150 feet wide almost entirely cast in shaow. These trees are enormous and also very tall. I am assuming they are taxodium? That would be near maximum for the species. Whatever they are, they approach 140 feet in height...Almost all of them. Very impressive forest for sure and continuous to the East, North and South. The forest around this immediate appears to be actual virgin timber and unlogged. Am I correct in this assumption? Has anyone reading this post been in there? This area looks very PRIME for IBWO's in my non expert opinion. I believe the tree in there to be enormous and old. I want to go search there. I also have been looking over the Apalachicola River & State forest comlex. Apalachicola River is much wider and more extensive than Choctawhatchee Basin and some of the last confirmed sightings were from this area in the 1950's. The trees in Apalachicola's middle to lower basin do not appear to be quite large or mature as Choctawhatche, but there is some nice scattered remnants of huge trees and the basin is 6 miles wide and continuous in most places along with what appears to be tremendous variety and quantity for the IBWO to feed upon. It also connects over to the enormous Bradwell Bay Swamp and
It's really sad to see what has happened to the lower Alabama River to the West. This vast bottomland floodplain is nearly 20 miles wide and appears to have been recently butchered, according to my terra-server photographs. I can tell from aerial views of forested bottomlands that Florida has been much better stewards of these type of lands than Alambama. I wonder how many IBWO's were driven out of Alabama in recent years due to deforestation there?
http://www.terraserver-usa.com/image.aspx?T=2&S=17&Z=16&X=27&Y=129&W=3&qs=%7cchoctawhatchee%7cfl
This is a topo overview of Apalachicola state forest
http://www.terraserver-usa.com/image.aspx?T=1&S=10&Z=16&X=3440&Y=16584&W=3&qs=%7cchoctawhatchee%7cfl
This link is a big tree area of Middle-lower apalachicola, the West side that appears to be privately owned....6 mile basin of mixed old growth to mature forest...some logging obviously going on there as of 1999. The tree near the river edges are at least 100 feet tall. I can see numerous houses at the water's edge.
The terrserver pictures are from 1999 so I would hope not too much logging has occured in this managed state forest? What about roadless Bradwell Bay Swamp. That place looks VERY REMOTE and it's huge....50 roadless square miles !!!! What's in there ????? Looks like virgin flatwoods. Please advise............
Michael Taylor
My name is Michael Taylor, 40 years old & I currently reside in remote Trinity County, Northern California. For the last 15 years, I have been bushwhacking in my free time through the redwood forests of Humboldt and Mendocino Counties of Northern Cal searching for the tallest trees. I successfully found it in 1996 and again this last Summer on July 1st and again on August 25. The new tallest trees were officially climbed and measured by direct tape drop on Sept 16th-7th. The tree names and heights are Helios and Hyperion, and they stand 375.3' & 379.1' respectively. My true passion is looking for the biggest and tallest trees of each spieces. I recently went to Victoria Australia in search of the tallest and largest eucalyptus. Awesome place ! I have lately become interested in locating the biggest, gnarliest taxodium (Bald Cypress) .. Magnificent and Ancient tree for sure. In addition to this, I have become extremely interested in both seeing and photographing an Ivory Billed Woodpecker. At this point, the skeptics are really starting to annoy me. In light of new and overwhelming evidence, they still claim the bird is extinct. They are basically calling a lot of very credible and honest people liars and lunatics. They are also being extremely pompous to assume mankind has fully explored every square mile of every bottomland forest. Additoinally, the ivory bill never escaped detection after the 1944 Tanner sightings as it was seen occassionally by humans and frequently reported...always to be discredited by another skeptics who generally never bothered to go out and look for the bird. I predict at least one extremely high quality video or photograph will emerge within the next 8 months and the matter will be settled. The skeptics will eat crow in the end.
It is also my opinion that most people, whether it be amatuer birder or ornithologist...those whom are in decent health and really make a serious effort to find and to see an ivory bill....i.e...follow up on good leads from the blog sites...listen to the expert's advice and to those who have seen it before etc.... The people who do this and who are persistent and never give up, will likely see one. I am one of those people. I plan to aggressively search for this bird early next year, 2007. I intend to not only see one, but to also obtain a high quality video image...if i am lucky enough of course ! I don't care about making $$ or being famous. My main objective is to prove it's existence so they stop logging all those beautiful bottomland forests, thus giving the IBWO's a chance to survive an possibly even thrive.
The last few days, I have also been doing a lot of exploring of the FL panhandle using the internet by terraserver-usa and also google-earth...amazing free services ! The entire Choctawhatchee Basin below Highway 10 is mostly intact and the trees are obviously very mature with average canopy height around the waters edges that approach 100 feet. One section North of East Island has an average canopy height of 120 feet with several large crowns casting shadows at least 130 feet long over the water's edge..See terraserver link of this aerial picture..
http://www.terraserver-usa.com/image.aspx?T=1&S=10&Z=16&X=3006&Y=16842&W=3&qs=%7cchoctawhatchee%7cfl+++bradwell+day+topo
. The angle of the sun was about 45 degrees at the time of photograph and I can see 3 enormous tree crowns when zooming into the 1m resolution, the maximum resolution terra-serrver will provide. Using trigonometry, a tree's shadow is about equal to it's height when the sun is at a 45 degree angle above the horizon. The shadows of each of these particular trees are about 45 yards long. When I zoom to 1m at the river edges, there are some places were the trees obviously have enormous crowns and shadows that project over the water. Please take not of the small sub-island just north of East Island. There is a channel there to the north 150 feet wide almost entirely cast in shaow. These trees are enormous and also very tall. I am assuming they are taxodium? That would be near maximum for the species. Whatever they are, they approach 140 feet in height...Almost all of them. Very impressive forest for sure and continuous to the East, North and South. The forest around this immediate appears to be actual virgin timber and unlogged. Am I correct in this assumption? Has anyone reading this post been in there? This area looks very PRIME for IBWO's in my non expert opinion. I believe the tree in there to be enormous and old. I want to go search there. I also have been looking over the Apalachicola River & State forest comlex. Apalachicola River is much wider and more extensive than Choctawhatchee Basin and some of the last confirmed sightings were from this area in the 1950's. The trees in Apalachicola's middle to lower basin do not appear to be quite large or mature as Choctawhatche, but there is some nice scattered remnants of huge trees and the basin is 6 miles wide and continuous in most places along with what appears to be tremendous variety and quantity for the IBWO to feed upon. It also connects over to the enormous Bradwell Bay Swamp and
It's really sad to see what has happened to the lower Alabama River to the West. This vast bottomland floodplain is nearly 20 miles wide and appears to have been recently butchered, according to my terra-server photographs. I can tell from aerial views of forested bottomlands that Florida has been much better stewards of these type of lands than Alambama. I wonder how many IBWO's were driven out of Alabama in recent years due to deforestation there?
http://www.terraserver-usa.com/image.aspx?T=2&S=17&Z=16&X=27&Y=129&W=3&qs=%7cchoctawhatchee%7cfl
This is a topo overview of Apalachicola state forest
http://www.terraserver-usa.com/image.aspx?T=1&S=10&Z=16&X=3440&Y=16584&W=3&qs=%7cchoctawhatchee%7cfl
This link is a big tree area of Middle-lower apalachicola, the West side that appears to be privately owned....6 mile basin of mixed old growth to mature forest...some logging obviously going on there as of 1999. The tree near the river edges are at least 100 feet tall. I can see numerous houses at the water's edge.
The terrserver pictures are from 1999 so I would hope not too much logging has occured in this managed state forest? What about roadless Bradwell Bay Swamp. That place looks VERY REMOTE and it's huge....50 roadless square miles !!!! What's in there ????? Looks like virgin flatwoods. Please advise............
Michael Taylor