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Ivory-billed Woodpecker (formerly updates) (4 Viewers)

choupique1 said:
if any bird could be painted.. to look like and ibwo..... and fool people......

hooded merganser.... the drake.. hoodie.. looks and flies a lot like a female IBWO.....


luckily.. the hoodie..unlike a woodie is not a highly sought after duck..... ie.. hunters don't seek them out.. in fact they rarely shoot them
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So, does a female IBW fly differently than a male?
 
Nothing in the literature to indicate that as far as I know. Female ivory-bills tend to have slightly longer wings than males, at least outside of Florida.
 
Search is on for rare woodpecker Ivory bill's haunts might
include Carolinas
JACK HORAN Special Correspondent
Posted on Sun, Jul. 03, 2005
http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte/sports/outdoors/12045652.htm

"One promising area could be the Waccamaw River swamps in southeastern North Carolina, where two fishermen reported that in 2004 they saw two birds whose descriptions matched those of ivory bills."

"[Anne Hobbs, who sifts through the reports] has passed along a dozen "significant" sightings to search project director Ron Rohrbaugh, who said the Waccamaw River report ranks as the most intriguing."

"[Ron] Rohrbaugh said the man who called in the report said he and another angler fishing the Waccamaw in March 2004 saw a pair of birds flying over. One had a red crest; the other, a black crest. Rohrbaugh said the man was familiar with the pileated woodpecker and its markings."

"Rohrbaugh last week referred the sighting to Craig Watson, a federal wildlife biologist in Charleston, because of the
proximity of biologists at the Waccamaw River National Wildlife Refuge in South Carolina. Watson said a biologist will visit the unidentified angler and the scene of the sighting."

"[Jeff Fleming of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Atlanta] said search strategies won't be determined until late summer, and searches would take place in winter, when it's easier to spot birds in the leafless tree canopy and when the woodpeckers tend to be more vocal."

TimeShadowed
 
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How to ford

fangsheath said:
Water levels were pretty low when I was there, I had no difficulty walking the floodplain, although there were certainly muddy spots and I had to cross a slough on a fallen log at one point. In many of the areas I saw, the water would have to rise at least 10 feet to inundate the forest floor (which I have no doubt it does, particularly in the winter). The refuge roads are well-maintained and many areas are penetrated by them. ATV trails are everywhere. It is clear that this refuge has been heavily utilized by hunters and fishermen for many years. The refuge caters to them, making habitat modifications to help waterfowl and enhance fishing. If, as I believe, there are ivory-bills breeding here, I think it makes the case that the birds can co-exist with such activities, provided there is a large, continuous, mature forest for them to stretch their wings in.

And yes, there are cottonmouths.
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Please view my Website @ http://www.tyler.rrtstudios.com/Ivory.htm and view the pirogue(canoe). This pirogue weights 40 lbs .... you just pull up to a log swing a leg over and swing the pirogue over get in and continue... easy as that, I also carry a kayak dolly for long fords. Oh yea the pirogue drafts about 3 or 4 inches. Caution be sure and view the opposite side of the log before swinging over for cottonmouths however they will usually warn you.
 
aubrey said:
The Brinkley Argus had on its front page today a picture of the train trestle that was being reinforced for birdwatchers and tourists. Apparenty somebody set it on fire.


State Police investigating Dagmar blaze

An Arkansas State Police fire investigation has been called to the scene of a Friday afternoon fire at Dagmar Wildlife Management Area that destroyed one of the principal viewing areas officials established for birders in the wake of the rediscovery of the ivory-billed woodpecker.

Because the scene indicated someone set an abandoned Rock Island railroad trestle ablaze, the state police will investigate, said Game and Fish Capt. Jack Gipson. Upgrades were in process to make the trestle safer and more convenient for tourists.

"It is a total loss. We are not able to save the bridge." Gipson said.

Jim Self of Rose Bud, a contractor working on the trestle, called in the fire at about 1 p.m. after returning to the job site from lunch, Gipson said. The Brinkley Fire Department responded.

Jim Keller, regional maintenance coordinator for Game and Fish, noted that Self had been contracted to add lumber and hand rails to the trestle to make it into a walking trail for bird watchers. He noted the fire had eliminated any viewing access along the railroad trestle.

The fire should not have any long term and adverse effects on wild life, said Mike Coker, G&F regional wildlife supervisor.

"The fire might temporarily displace wildlife; they have the instinct to stay away from smoke," he said. There should not be any long range problems."
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Please see a current photo of the same bridge via my site http://www.tyler.rrtstudios.com/Ivory.htm
If anyone has a photo of the observation area prior than please share for historical reasons. Thankyou
 
the head of a female IBWO looks a lot like a hoodie drake in flight... with the exception of the head.. IBWO male and female look and fly the same....

i see mary scott is now signing prints.. boy that must be valuable....more than my john hancock when i was playing ball.....
 
Hey Snowy! Where are your pictures of the scaling? I was in White River about a month ago and saw quiet a few trees that were scaled, but I have nothing against which to compare the observations. I agree the area clearly could support IBW, but, like you, I neither saw nor heard Ibws. When you post the pictures please advise. Thanks.

Jesse
 
Snowy1 said:
I had originally posted the pictures on my makeshift website but Mary Scott has now linked everything from her site: www.birdingamerica.com. The link is on the front page under Chris's field report...
Click to expand...

Nice report, Snowy.

Some of those scalings remind me of some that I saw in quite a few very mature Nuttall oaks about 18 years ago at a certain location in Mississippi. At that point in time, I had never heard of an IBWO, but I recall looking about 2/3rds up in the oaks and wondering at the time what was causing the extensive scaling. Now in 2005, I sometimes wonder if the scaling was the work of IBWOs. I think it probably was.
 
Could very well have been. I supposed all reported sightings in the last 60 years will have to be reviewed. It looks like 99% of the population (myself included) was writing off reported sightings when there were, in fact, people actually seeing IBWs.

I'm still somewhat unclear on what mammals are capable of bark-scaling and the extensiveness/similarity of the scaling to the IBW. Clearly beavers can scale and perhaps porcupines but since I'm no expert on these creatures can anyone enlighten us all? This may help in identifying suitable areas to search/continue searching.
 
Sightings

Even now most of the previously debunked sightings were probably in error. This just brings up the probability from zero to a few percent. Not to diminish the current situation though. The difference between zero and a few percent is the difference between existance and extinction.
 
Snowy1 said:
Could very well have been. I supposed all reported sightings in the last 60 years will have to be reviewed. It looks like 99% of the population (myself included) was writing off reported sightings when there were, in fact, people actually seeing IBWs.

I'm still somewhat unclear on what mammals are capable of bark-scaling and the extensiveness/similarity of the scaling to the IBW. Clearly beavers can scale and perhaps porcupines but since I'm no expert on these creatures can anyone enlighten us all? This may help in identifying suitable areas to search/continue searching.
Click to expand...

There are no porcupines down here in the South and beaver damage would be much lower on the tree than the scalings I saw in Mississippi years ago. Plus beavers tend to work on much smaller diameter trees than a mature red oak or sweet gum The beaver work I've seen has been on very small diameter stuff as they are going to drag the stuff off to build their lodges with it. I don't know, what I saw years ago could have been pileated work, but it was definitely scaling as opposed to drillings into the trees. These trees were still alive, but obviously beginning the downhill slide as there were quite a few dead upper branches. Here is another interesting point. This location in Mississippi was probably no more than 35 miles from where Jerome Jackson and a student thought they heard an IBWO calling, also back in the '80s. I'm going to try to get back up there later this year, but I would think those nuttall oaks are dead and gone by now. I'm just sorry that back in the '80s I didn't know about IBWOs and their history.
 
Actually beaver sign can be surprisingly high on the trunk in floodplains, but in my experience it looks nothing like woodpecker work. Other mammals, such as bears, damage bark, but one thing that is often distinctive about woodpecker sign, whether it is excavation or scaling, are multiple gouges that are much more horizontal than vertical. They are rounded in form, like tiny glacial valleys, not v-shaped, like scratches. An examination of excavations that are classic pileated work will reveal many such gouges. Woodpecker work may not always have distinct horizontal gouges, but when they are present I think they are diagnostic (as are the horizontal rows of pits that sapsuckers make).
 
The scalings I saw were roughly 2/3rds up into some very mature Nuttall oaks. These trees were somewhere in the vicinity of 85' high, possibly a little more, so the scalings were at least 50 feet off the ground. I can assure you that floodwaters never remotely get that high in the area I was at, even though it was a remnant of the classic Southern bottomland forest. A high seasonal flood in that area might be 5 to 8 feet.

By the way, Nuttall oaks are some of the fastest maturing of the red oak family, and begin the decaying process earlier than most of the other red oak group. Even though the Southern bottomland forests were slaughtered by the greedheads, some places can have surprisingly good growback given 60 to 70 years. This area I was at also had some nice willow and water oak, sycamores, sweet gums, sugarberries, and some large, hollow old-growth cypress trees along the river banks.
 
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I was told by a birder today that there is some doubt in some quarters that an IBWO was actually seen in Arkansas, and that a report of such will be made at some upcoming birding conference.

I find it hard to believe that there can be doubt, as why would the CLO, Nature Conservancy, U.S. Interior Dept, etc, stick there neck out if they weren't sure? I think there have been at least 7 solid sightings up in Arkansas by knowledgeable people.
 
GWS... that is very doubtful my man........ what is being kicked around is a couple of sightings may be "relooked" at - and either debunked or validated....


but plenty "old" sightings are being reviewed.... aka.... st. mary parish...... pearl.... .

2 spots in MS.......


doubt is being created by some that are paranoid over the IBWO and the power of the ESA...
 
However unbelievable it still seems, the IBW is not extinct. The 7-15 sightings by proffesionals and the flight of the bird in the video make conclusive evidence. They simply wouldn't risk their careers by making a hoax. It must be one of the greatest scientific discoveries of recent time.
 
Snowy:
To state that these sightings are real because they were made by professionals makes me wonder - were there not a number of reports made by wildlife professionals during the sixty years of silence that resulted in these professionals being ridiculed, scorned and even discredited publicly in the press? Seems to me there were even professionals who had written papers about the birds previously, those papers received high acclaim, but subsequent sightings were ridiculed. No, we would have to have more than just "these sightings were made by professionals who would not risk their reputation."
Fortunately, as you mention, we do have the video.

Mark
Bastrop, TX
 
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