Ivory-billed Woodpecker (formerly updates) (5 Viewers)

timeshadowed · Apr 14, 2007

MMinNY said:
In fairness to Jane, I don't think her issue with Ross's notes had to do with the way they were written; she did not feel that he had done enough to rule out other possibilities and also felt that he had provided insufficient detail.

That may be, but she still kept demanding more and more details be included in the notes as time went on. Why didn't she clearly state what she wanted in the first place then?

MMinNY said:
I disagree with her insistence that field notes should rule out every possible alternative explanation, even (as I've been arguing) hypothetical ones. This strikes me as setting an impossibly high standard. At the same time, I think she has been logically consistent, even if she has clarified and elaborated on what she would accept.

That is sorta what I was trying to say. It seems that she will never be able accept that someone may have actually seen an IBWO, because her starting point is not 'maybe' but 'it's impossible' because the IBWO is extinct, period.

A true skeptic is open-minded. Many posters in this thread who claim to be 'skeptics' are not open-minded at all, but have already made up their minds with reagard to the IBWO.

curunir · Apr 14, 2007

timeshadowed said:
That may be, but she still kept demanding more and more details be included in the notes as time went on. Why didn't she clearly state what she wanted in the first place then?

That is sorta what I was trying to say. It seems that she will never be able accept that someone may have actually seen an IBWO, because her starting point is not 'maybe' but 'it's impossible' because the IBWO is extinct, period.

A true skeptic is open-minded. Many posters in this thread who claim to be 'skeptics' are not open-minded at all, but have already made up their minds with reagard to the IBWO.

There was the one person a ways back who sketched an IBWO with all the proper fieldmarks and then the next day took a picture of a PIWO. The next day his son or nephew took a picture and low and behold, a pileated. I'm still looking for the post where the father or uncle said it wasn't the bird he saw the day before. Bottom line is, most of the sightings are PIWO, with only a very small percentage actually IBWO (I'm a believer).

Rediscovered · Apr 14, 2007

curunir said:
There was the one person a ways back who sketched an IBWO with all the proper fieldmarks and then the next day took a picture of a PIWO. The next day his son or nephew took a picture and low and behold, a pileated. I'm still looking for the post where the father or uncle said it wasn't the bird he saw the day before. Bottom line is, most of the sightings are PIWO, with only a very small percentage actually IBWO (I'm a believer).

It was on another thread under 'Rare bird information':
http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=66319&highlight=ivory-billed
(Sorry, I didn't look for the particular post.)

Arkie recently posted an update, too:
http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=81039&highlight=ivory-billed

Tuna Slushie · Apr 14, 2007

curunir said:
There was the one person a ways back who sketched an IBWO with all the proper fieldmarks and then the next day took a picture of a PIWO. The next day his son or nephew took a picture and low and behold, a pileated. I'm still looking for the post where the father or uncle said it wasn't the bird he saw the day before. Bottom line is, most of the sightings are PIWO, with only a very small percentage actually IBWO (I'm a believer).

Right. It would be foolish to believe all reports. They must all the looked at critically and with an open mind. That's what real skepticism is.

timeshadowed · Apr 14, 2007

curunir said:
There was the one person a ways back who sketched an IBWO with all the proper fieldmarks and then the next day took a picture of a PIWO. The next day his son or nephew took a picture and low and behold, a pileated. I'm still looking for the post where the father or uncle said it wasn't the bird he saw the day before. Bottom line is, most of the sightings are PIWO, with only a very small percentage actually IBWO (I'm a believer).

That would be Arkie
http://www.birdforum.net/member.php?u=45661

Find all posts by Arkie:
http://www.birdforum.net/search.php?searchid=2592908

He wrote an update to this saga:
IBWO in Arkansas revisited
http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=81039

He also posted some on ibwo.net I think - so you might want to search over there too.

I agree that some IBWO claimed sightings do turn out to be like our friend Arkie.

But then you have the ones like TRE who claims to be VERY familiar with the PIWO and says what he saw was NOT a PIWO. It is TRE's sighting in particular that Jane has raised the bar on and that type of behavior annoys me.

dave_in_michigan · Apr 15, 2007

Jane Turner said:
We can always hope that some of it rubs off on the people in the field - and they are able to describe what they see, and are capable of looking critically at putative records rather than with ivory-billed-tinted glasses.

The first step is to avoid deluding yourself that you have seen something rarer than you have!

<shameless_bump>

Hi Jane,

Would you mind commenting on my reported sighting? Not enough for a records committee, I know. But I haven't gotten any critical response in this forum, either. I'm not sure what to make of that...

www.dcibwo.net

(Critical responses welcome from others, also.)

thanks in advance,

- Dave

</shameless_bump>

Ilya Maclean said:
I'm talking about proper first hand descriptions / field notes - not I was wondering through the woods one day and chanced upon an IBWO....

dave_in_michigan; Friday 6th April 2007 said:

I would describe my experience and report as a hybrid between those extremes. What are your thoughts on my notes? They were not written down directly in the field, but primarilly later the same evening (with some slight modifications in the following couple days). If you discount this report, I'd honestly appreciate hearing your reasons why.

Click to expand...

djleahy · Apr 15, 2007

The bar isn't so high. Get a decent photo, with corroboration of more than one person. That isn't so hard. If the bird exists, this should have happened by now. If this can't be achieved, then it casts doubt on the existence of the bird. It's that simple.

As time goes on, the odds of the continued existence of the ivory-billed woodpecker dwindles from slim to none. Two years ago, it seemed unlikely. Now, it seems very unlikely.

I would be utterly delighted to have my skepticism proven misplaced by some excellent evidence!

djleahy · Apr 15, 2007

With respect to sightings such as TRE's and Dave_in_michigan's, all I can say is that until you find a way to share such sightings in a concrete way with the rest of humanity, you are squarely in the UFO sighting level of credibility. Yeah, it's like that.

timeshadowed · Apr 15, 2007

djleahy said:
The bar isn't so high. Get a decent photo, with corroboration of more than one person. That isn't so hard. If the bird exists, this should have happened by now. If this can't be achieved, then it casts doubt on the existence of the bird. It's that simple

Simple it is not. Tanner had to be LED to every IBWO by a 'local'. Today, these same 'locals' seem very unwilling to lead anyone to a nest site that may be located on their property. Thus the wait until a searcher finds a nest site on their own that just happens to be located on 'public' land somewhere.

djleahy · Apr 15, 2007

delusion

timeshadowed said:
Simple it is not. Tanner had to be LED to every IBWO by a 'local'. Today, these same 'locals' seem very unwilling to lead anyone to a nest site that may be located on their property. Thus the wait until a searcher finds a nest site on their own that just happens to be located on 'public' land somewhere.

Why can't you perceive how delusional your post sounds? You have constructed a situation where no direct evidence is possible, because, well, just because. It just seems more and more ridiculous as time goes on. I hope you find a way to gracefully accede to the delusion in the fullness of time.

Unless, of course, the happy news (with real evidence) arrives that the bird lives.

See? Even though I think this IBWO boondoggle has attracted a horde of people lacking in critical analysis skills, I'm still hopeful to be surprised with some real evidence.

timeshadowed · Apr 15, 2007

djleahy said:
Why can't you perceive how delusional your post sounds?

I'm not delusional at all. Facts are facts. Tanner did not find the birds on his own.

djleahy · Apr 15, 2007

timeshadowed said:
I'm not delusional at all. Facts are facts. Tanner did not find the birds on his own.

Fair enough, I realize that my assertions are tough. I am simply hopeful that as time tells its tale, all the players in this tragicomedy find a way to fall into its swath.

djleahy · Apr 15, 2007

djleahy said:
Fair enough, I realize that my assertions are tough. I am simply hopeful that as time tells its tale, all the players in this tragicomedy find a way to fall into its swath.

I've been working on sounding as patronizing as possible, trying to learn from our compatriates across the sea. I can't help but think that my words ring hollow, though. Anyhow, my intent is real and undisguised, even if I sound really snotty.

Jane Turner · Apr 15, 2007

dave_in_michigan said:
<shameless_bump>

Hi Jane,

Would you mind commenting on my reported sighting? Not enough for a records committee, I know. But I haven't gotten any critical response in this forum, either. I'm not sure what to make of that...

www.dcibwo.net

(Critical responses welcome from others, also.)

thanks in advance,

- Dave

</shameless_bump>

Hi Dave.

I reckon that you are in just about the same place as TRE. Unlike most of the reports of putative Ivory Bills you have managed to rule out a pied crow by describing the neck shape. It would be good to know that you saw a black body (thus ruling out assorted wildfowl e.g. Hooded Merganser).

Its possible that you saw IBWO but you are a fair way from being sure.

Jane Turner · Apr 15, 2007

MMinNY said:
Jane, we've been getting along swimmingly of late, and as I've told you privately, I'm very grateful for your willingness to be clear about your standards for field notes and your approach to the evidence, so this is not intended to be churlish or attacking. . .but I've got to ask: which is rarer, the IBWO (which has been reported dozens of times over the last 60 years, sometimes in considerable detail) or a hypothetical and heretofore undocumented mutant Pileated? According to Lammertink, there's only one report of such a bird that comes close, and there's no photographic evidence to support it, AFAIK.

Whooa - how many of those 60 are even proven to be Woodpeckers... things like I saw a bird that I took to be a Crow, but it had white in its wings..... or the bird flew like a duck and had white in its wings like the speculum of a duck.... don't exactly fill you with confidence that they weren't a crow or a duck!

We have one PIWO with white secondaries has been described well by an experienced observer who originally took it to be IBWO and we have two intriguing possible IBWO records by Tyler Hicks and a few Woodpeckers that seem to have white secondaries. You decide which is more likely.... both are possible, both are seriously uncommon.

But liklihood isn't what matters.... its not as I said a few weeks back about taking a best guess about what has been seen. Its about proving that there is no way that the bird seen is a PIWO with white secondaries.

Jane Turner · Apr 15, 2007

MMinNY said:
In fairness to Jane, I don't think her issue with Ross's notes had to do with the way they were written; she did not feel that he had done enough to rule out other possibilities and also felt that he had provided insufficient detail.

I disagree with her insistence that field notes should rule out every possible alternative explanation, even (as I've been arguing) hypothetical ones. This strikes me as setting an impossibly high standard. At the same time, I think she has been logically consistent, even if she has clarified and elaborated on what she would accept.

I'm sure that anyone with experience of rare bird record submission or assessment aleady knows what level of docuemtation is required to get a record accepted. As has been said many times already, with the exception of Tyler Hicks' second record, we as yet don't have anything that would be deemed acceptable for even a minor state/county rarity.

I'm curious why some of you believers think think that the level of doumentation for a record as important as IBWO should be less exacting than e.g. for a Great Black-backed Gull in the Everglades.

Jane Turner · Apr 15, 2007

timeshadowed said:
That may be, but she still kept demanding more and more details be included in the notes as time went on. Why didn't she clearly state what she wanted in the first place then?

I have always said that the record should be good enough to get the bird accepted as though it were a national rarity.... its not my fault that you don't seem to appreciate what that is!

Vultur · Apr 15, 2007

Jane Turner said:
I'm sure that anyone with experience of rare bird record submission or assessment aleady knows what level of docuemtation is required to get a record accepted. As has been said many times already, with the exception of Tyler Hicks' second record, we as yet don't have anything that would be deemed acceptable for even a minor state/county rarity.

I'm curious why some of you believers think think that the level of doumentation for a record as important as IBWO should be less exacting than e.g. for a Great Black-backed Gull in the Everglades.

To play devil's advocate for a bit - now that we know about the photos from the 70's and all the recent sightings - there was never any real reason to think it was extinct. Therefore, it's more like a record of Harpy Eagle in, say, southern Mexico (it's there, but extremely rare and even rarer to see) than something out of range.

Jane Turner · Apr 15, 2007

Rare breeding birds are not exempt from requiring descriptions to prove their identity before they become offcially accepted.

timeshadowed · Apr 15, 2007

Jane Turner said:
I have always said that the record should be good enough to get the bird accepted as though it were a national rarity.... its not my fault that you don't seem to appreciate what that is!

Re TRE's 2 sightings:

Jane,

After TRE posted his field notes for his first sighting he tried to follow all of your instructions on how to take field notes for his second sighting. But it seems that even after trying so hard to 'get it right' that time, he still failed to be percise enough with his notes according to you.
I feel that this type of response only serves to discourage rather than encourage non-birders from coming here to report sightings. This thread is NOT an official records committee so why are you trying to make it that way? Most non-birders who find this board are only wanting to share what they have seen with others. They have not even heard of a 'records committee' before.

It takes many hours of training to learn to take field notes that are complete enough to be accepted by such a committee. Most IBWO sighting reports do not come from those who have been trained in the discipline of 'field note taking', so why reject those non-birder reports on this board?

I think that it is ok to ask for further details from those who post their sightings here, but to insist that their field notes meet state/national records committee standards is way out of line.

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