Ivory-billed Woodpecker (formerly updates) (13 Viewers)

[humminbird]

That would be an interesting map to see, any idea if it's available online? Also, do you happen to know what normally came first in the supported sightings-the sound recordings or the sightings?

Most often sounds heard. Occasionally sound recordings although these are NOT being analyzed in the field AND are not being analyzed by people who are aware of what is being sought. The analysts are not even aware of what team the recordings are coming from to keep it blind. They simply have a sample sonogram and are told to note when similar patterns occur on the sonograms.

Sometimes the sighting comes first, as in Hill's first observation, but any good birder knows that you find far more with your ears than with your eyes.

 

[Louis Bevier]

Sometimes the sighting comes first, as in Hill's first observation...

Geoff Hill heard sounds first according to an account in his book Ivorybill Hunters: [pg.23, Geoff Hill says] I was turning my kayak into the creek channel when I heard very loud knocking coming from the big trees nearby...We were right next to each other...[when] Brian said, "Did you see that?" "See what?" Tyler and I answered in unison, clearly having seen nothing. "The bird that flew off, right from where the knocking was. It was very white," Brian said, a bit excited... [pg. 26, and a bit further on in the day's search, Geoff Hill says] I heard a clear double knock off to my right...[moving up to] Tyler and Brian, who were 100 feet in front of me..."Did you guys hear that double knock?" I asked. They hadn't.

Take home message: there is no way to know what anyone heard or saw. That these appear plausible is undeniable; the sights and sounds are consistent with Ivory-billed Woodpecker. Failure to refind and verify the observation, let's say with a 2-3 minute multi-person observation, is not consistent (nevermind getting a photo). Remember, a modern era birder, Roger Tory Peterson, said "an ivorybill, once heard, is easy to find."

As for a map of reports, the ones I've seen only plot those within the historic range of the Ivory-bill. That makes sense, but they exclude the "noise" of other reports beyond the species's historic range that, if included, would show the current rash to be slightly higher blips in the general white noise of continual reports (Arthur Allen cautioned about this). Localized denser patterns of reports is, of course, expected because observers have been primed and ready to see an ivory-bill in particular areas. "Hot zones" come and go, and not all are believed by all parties--Cornell doesn't believe Auburn's or Fishcrow's; Auburn doesn't think Arkansas is legit anymore; Fishcrow doesn't believe Cornell. And around we go. Nevertheless, folks latch onto the cumulative scroll of reports and think that someone must be right. Right?

After the Pearl River episode and before the Arkansas gold rush, I received this second-hand report on 30 Apr 2002: "They have had pileated's around their yard for years, and this am, they were at the window and a woodpecker came in, with what she descried as a magnificent crest and a yellow bill...She is aware how impossible an ivory-billed would be, and promises to call immediately if she sees the bird again. She said in hindsight they were not as diligent about noticing the details as they should have been, but she thought the face to be mostly black." Should one plot that report? How should it be ranked?

 

[salar53]

Take home message: there is no way to know what anyone heard or saw

Precisely.

 

[Louis Bevier]

Originally Posted by Louis Bevier: Take home message: there is no way to know what anyone heard or saw
Precisely.

Thanks, Salar. So when two out of three observers that are all close to each other fail to see a "very white" bird and also fail to hear a "clear" double knock together, we should label it as nothing more than unexplained. As pointed out by others previously, compiling a bunch of uncertain things adds up to nothing more than, well, something uncertain. That is why the talks by Chuck Hunter and Geoff Hill seem to me to be so misleading.

Should the description I cited above be a possible or probable sighting? Bill color and black face sounds good. The observer is honest. I wonder how Chuck Hunter would rank this one?

Jane, go for it. It would be a blast to survey by microlite. I got to hop around some remote spots in Brazil by ultralight once. yahooo!!

 

[salar53]

Sword

Jane, go for it. It would be a blast to survey by microlite. I got to hop around some remote spots in Brazil by ultralight once. yahooo!!

And some of you, Louis, would begrudge the searchers a measly little trip or two in a helicopter!

And I agree with you: we can never really know for sure what an observer has seen. I will now refer to that phenomenon as the Bevier Two-edged Sword. An Ivory-billed Woodpecker might possibly have been seen.

 

[curunir]

And some of you, Louis, would begrudge the searchers a measly little trip or two in a helicopter!

And I agree with you: we can never really know for sure what an observer has seen. I will now refer to that phenomenon as the Bevier Two-edged Sword. An Ivory-billed Woodpecker might possibly have been seen.

two trips in a helicopter would pay for the microlite.

 

[Louis Bevier]

And I agree with you: we can never really know for sure what an observer has seen. I will now refer to that phenomenon as the Bevier Two-edged Sword. An Ivory-billed Woodpecker might possibly have been seen.

Only one side has an edge. There is no other edge, only endless "might possibly" conditions, Ivory-billed far from the most likely among them.

 

[salar53]

Hangs by a Thread

Only one side has an edge. There is no other edge, only endless "might possibly" conditions, Ivory-billed far from the most likely among them.

Two edges, I'm afraid, Louis, and the sharpest of sharp points; and it hangs by the thread of a good photograph above the head of the hapless A. Sceptic!

 

[Louis Bevier]

Unfortunately, Salar, the past "might possiblies" remain forever. No overcoming that. You still can't hone that other edge. Any confirmation that might come is welcome falsification of an hypothesis. The beliefs that past glimmers of hope might possibly have been are not open to that test.

 

[salar53]

Unfortunately, Salar, the past "might possiblies" remain forever. No overcoming that. You still can't hone that other edge. Any confirmation that might come is welcome falsification of an hypothesis. The beliefs that past glimmers of hope might possibly have been are not open to that test.

Well, we'll agree to differ. And your sword gave me renewed hope.

 

[Louis Bevier]

Words from the 1970s

Oblomovism (1974) -- a molluscan lifestyle that could explain the periodic dormancy yet persistence of this thread … or perhaps unproven novel adapataions proposed to explain Ivory-billed Woodpeckers as phantasms.

Extation (1976) -- refutes the pretense that ornithologists have long presumed the Ivory-billed Woodpecker extinct. On the contrary, the predominate and mainstream view, which doesn't make as good a story for those selling books or blogs, has been realistic and circumspect about the species's status. Dr. Richard C. Banks, current chair of the A.O.U. Committee on Classification and Nomenclature, introduced this term to describe the status of a species whose population has been reduced to such a low level that it no longer functions as a significant part of its normal ecosystem or to the point where there is considerable doubt whether any are extant (i.e., not saying known to be extinct).

No one took up the description of a possible Ivory-bill that I mentioned. Large crest, black face, and yellow bill all sound good, but that description came from someone making an honest report in Maine. Because such mistakes occur frequently both inside and outside the historical range of the Ivory-bill, discrimination of "credible" reports is impossible. For this reason, summaries implying some pattern, such as the one given by Chuck Hunter at the PIF meeting, come across merely as attempts to build a plausible case for existence in the absence of verifiable evidence. At the same time, people who find the original Arkansas evidence convincing are extremely wary of other ambiguous claims, not because they are making impartial evaluations but because they worry such reports detract from the ones they believe (choose your team) and add "fuel to the fire of skeptics." Those aren't my words, those are the words of reviewer #1 made public by Mike Collins himself (see his astonishing 2-28 and 2-29-08 entries). Such stubbornness based only on what they themselves feel is convincing in spite of repeated independent refutations strikes me as the very definition of mumpsimus (a word from the 1530s instead of the 1970s).

I don't know what the USFWS paid for helicopter surveys in the Pearl River, but here is a reasonably good report of how those went back in 2001. And the beat goes on....

 

[dave_in_michigan]

No one took up the description of a possible Ivory-bill that I mentioned. Large crest, black face, and yellow bill all sound good, but that description came from someone making an honest report in Maine. Because such mistakes occur frequently both inside and outside the historical range of the Ivory-bill, discrimination of "credible" reports is impossible. For this reason, summaries implying some pattern, such as the one given by Chuck Hunter at the PIF meeting, come across merely as attempts to build a plausible case for existence in the absence of verifiable evidence.

I've never thought that the reports to date amounted to sufficient documentation of existence. Sighting reports to me provide reasons to go out and try to get verification and documentation. Not more. That is how I would interpret Chuck Hunter's information as well, not as an "attempt to build a plausible case for existence". There's a big difference.

I don't know what the USFWS paid for helicopter surveys in the Pearl River, but here is a reasonably good report of how those went back in 2001. And the beat goes on....

Here's a quote from that link near the end:

"The upshot is, I believe, that low, slow helicopter transect
searches are effective at detecting woodpeckers in the ideal conditions of
relatively open-canopied forests, whereas in mature, closed-canopied forests
(where one might expect ivory-billed woodpeckers to be more likely to occur)
the technique is not effective."​

Ugh.

 

[Microtus]

The link to Mike Collins' website in Louis Bevier's post isn't working right now ("This website will be down while undergoing major revisions")

 

[Louis Bevier]

The link to Mike Collins' website in Louis Bevier's post isn't working right now ("This website will be down while undergoing major revisions")

The link to the reviewers' comments is still working, but the daily logs for the 2008 search season are gone (this Google cache shows the text through 2-27-08, where most links work, including one to a derision of James Tanner). Although I am here writing on an internet forum, this whole Ivory-bill blogosphere episode has many elements related in John Lanchester's review of Lee Siegel's book "Against the Machine." Time to go birding.

 

[Piltdownwoman]

Dave-in-Michigan,

The key point that Louis was trying to make with his Maine example, I think, is that you can find claimed sightings of Ivory-billed Woodpeckers from all over the US and southern Canada. Except for its location, this report from Maine is just as credible as any of the "high-quality" sightings from the southeast. The location alone is certainly enough to reject any Ivory-bill reports from Maine, but what that shows us is that reports as detailed as the one Louis describes can be false, so we should use that to set a threshold that is then applied to reports from within the Ivory-bill's former range.

It tells us that the "noise level" is high, and that we need some pretty solid evidence before we can really say we've found a "signal" that rises above the noise. When Chuck Hunter reviews reports from only certain states he's simply applying arbitrary filters, and calling what's left a "signal".

 

[salar53]

I am not stating for one moment that an IBWO was seen in Maine.
However, this is a cat-among-the-pigeons post all the same! How many miles is it from Maryland where the bird used to be seen, to Maine?

And how many miles is it from the habitat of the White-crowned Sparrow, right across the Atlantic, to eastern England in Norfolk where thousands of people have thronged to see this amazing little flyer?

Migrant birds can turn up nearly anywhere, including Maine.

 

[Piltdownwoman]

Migrant birds can turn up nearly anywhere, including Maine.

Quite true. And I think if you really look objectively at all the sightings "evidence" of Ivory-billeds, you'll find it scattered equally from Florida and Texas to Maine, Ontario, and Washington State. So one could conclude that they occur everywhere, or nowhere. It requires a strong bias to conclude that they still occur only within their historical range.

 

[dave_in_michigan]

When Chuck Hunter reviews reports from only certain states he's simply applying arbitrary filters, and calling what's left a "signal".

Where did you get the information that he was only reviewing reports from certain states? In his abstract he says

"Addressed here specifically is whether
the current pattern differs from credible reports prior to the
1930s, between 1930 and 1960, and between 1960 and 2005."​

His phrase "credible reports" implies some filtering... Do you know what his criteria were? Did he describe something at his presentation?

 

[dave_in_michigan]

IBWO reports from Canada and Washington State

Quite true. And I think if you really look objectively at all the sightings "evidence" of Ivory-billeds, you'll find it scattered equally from Florida and Texas to Maine, Ontario, and Washington State. So one could conclude that they occur everywhere, or nowhere. It requires a strong bias to conclude that they still occur only within their historical range.

Wow, IBWO sightings are equally scattered from Florida and Texas to Maine, Ontario, and Washington State? Really?!! Huh. I didn't know that.

I'd sure love to see your data... Where is it?

Or do you just make this stuff up as part of your "objective" review process? 8-P

[Edit:] It's a legitimate point about report "noise". But I suspect you're going a bit too far here. Sorry for the sarcasm. Love to see some data on the noise, if you have it.

 

[humminbird]

Quite true. And I think if you really look objectively at all the sightings "evidence" of Ivory-billeds, you'll find it scattered equally from Florida and Texas to Maine, Ontario, and Washington State. So one could conclude that they occur everywhere, or nowhere. It requires a strong bias to conclude that they still occur only within their historical range.

I agree with Dave. Please provide us your source of data indicating that "reports" are "scattered equally from Florida and Texas to Maine, Ontario and Washington". I know of one contact I have fielded simply questioning the possibility of Ivory-billed in Washington. The situation was that SOMEONE ELSE had posted a description of a bird wondering what it was. I provided the statement that this was clearly a Pileated and someone came back questioning Ivory-billed. When I pointed out the range discrepancy the OTHER PERSON continued to insist it was a possibility. This would hardly constitute a "sighting" or "evidence" since the person who made the report accepted the PIWO ID immediately. The OTHER PERSON is hardly worth discussing.