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Ivory-billed Woodpecker (formerly updates) (2 Viewers)

I don't think you need to be a particularly good artist to attempt to draw what you see.

Well that is a matter of opinion, as every attempt at drawing through the years produced "ugh results". I am improving, but I can look at a picture and still can not draw what I'm seeing. This includes things like mountains - shading is a pain for me - trees and birds. I have attempted to draw IBWO's and they still do not turn out like the picture! I can only imagine what I'd draw looking at a live bird!!
 
Thanks for your good wishes. . .I'm getting better thanks to heavy antibiotics. I want to commend the suggestion you made a while back about going into the field with dummy sketches to which details can be added when the time comes. It's a very helpful approach for those of us who are hopelessly challenged, artisically. Of course, they won't be much good if you're not looking for something specific, but I think anyone searching for the IBWO should use them, unless he/she is a competent artist.

A point that I've made before is that sketches do not have to be literal or have any artistic quality to be useful....

http://www.birdforum.net/showpost.php?p=804262&postcount=9688
 
I don't think you need to be a particularly good artist to attempt to draw what you see. If you don't draw what you see, the best case scenario is theat your field sketches add very little to a description (and thus time would be better spent looking at the bird or focusing on writing a better description). The worst case scenario is that you draw what you think should be seen, features included.

I haven't got my notebook to hand, but I'll post my Black Kite field description up in the next few days and you can fire at will

I don't think it matters what these searchers do, nothing will be good enough or taken seriously (by the cynics amongst us) unless a photo or video is captured or a carcass is turned up. I disagree with you on the field sketch as well (surprise surprise) and I hope people aren't deterred by your accusations based on less than great drawings. I am looking forward to seeing your sketches but rest assured I will not accuse you of making it up or ridicule it in any way, I am not a cynic.

Cheers,

Russ
 
I don't think it matters what these searchers do, nothing will be good enough or taken seriously (by the cynics amongst us) unless a photo or video is captured or a carcass is turned up. I disagree with you on the field sketch as well (surprise surprise) and I hope people aren't deterred by your accusations based on less than great drawings. I am looking forward to seeing your sketches but rest assured I will not accuse you of making it up or ridicule it in any way, I am not a cynic.

Cheers,

Russ


But, as I see it (and please correct me if I'm wrong) Ilya's original complaint about the sketch is that it is a top-down view rather than the view you would expect if you'd seen a woodpecker take off from a tree. Nothing to do with artistry, or lack of. Surely even a terrible artist would draw the view he/she saw & if Hicks is half the birder he is sometimes claimed to be on this thread he should know what field sketches should be about-a sketch of what you saw, not what you could have seen if you were above the bird.
 
Well that is a matter of opinion, as every attempt at drawing through the years produced "ugh results". I am improving, but I can look at a picture and still can not draw what I'm seeing. This includes things like mountains - shading is a pain for me - trees and birds. I have attempted to draw IBWO's and they still do not turn out like the picture! I can only imagine what I'd draw looking at a live bird!!

Re-read my post carefully, particularly noting the use of the word attempt. As Imaginos has kindly pointed out for me, my issues with the sketch have nothing to do with how life-like or artistic it is, merely to do with the angle at which he has drawn it from, which is highly unlikely to be the angle he saw it from.
 
my issues with the sketch.....merely to do with the angle at which he has drawn it from, which is highly unlikely to be the angle he saw it from.

This is an interesting look at the this aspect of the claim.

However, a sketch is not necessarily of a frozen instant of memory transformed to paper. A sighting involves a period of observance during which the subject is moving and the sketch crystalizes the whole of the details seen to one two-dimensional representation. If I was drawing a sketch of a sighting, I would have draw the outline of the bird in a position where I could include a number of the details I had seen throughout the sighting.

I don't know if Hick saw an IBWO but surely he would have enough imagination to draw the sketch in an aspect he describes seeing it if he was trying to invent it, rather than merely copying it from a book.

OT:This really includes the main problem I have with field sketches and why I think they are of limited value.A dedicated and imaginative fraudster could likely produce a very credible sketch of an event that never happened.
 
I don't know if Hick saw an IBWO but surely he would have enough imagination to draw the sketch in an aspect he describes seeing it if he was trying to invent it, rather than merely copying it from a book.

OT:This really includes the main problem I have with field sketches and why I think they are of limited value.A dedicated and imaginative fraudster could likely produce a very credible sketch of an event that never happened.

A very good point that is too often forgotten.
 
This is an interesting look at the this aspect of the claim.

However, a sketch is not necessarily of a frozen instant of memory transformed to paper. A sighting involves a period of observance during which the subject is moving and the sketch crystalizes the whole of the details seen to one two-dimensional representation. If I was drawing a sketch of a sighting, I would have draw the outline of the bird in a position where I could include a number of the details I had seen throughout the sighting.

I don't know if Hick saw an IBWO but surely he would have enough imagination to draw the sketch in an aspect he describes seeing it if he was trying to invent it, rather than merely copying it from a book.

OT:This really includes the main problem I have with field sketches and why I think they are of limited value.A dedicated and imaginative fraudster could likely produce a very credible sketch of an event that never happened.

I obviously cannot prove anything as I wasn't there, so all of the following and my previous posts regarding Tyler's sightings are based on gut-feeling and deduction rather than evidence. However, Tyler's notes do not provide conclusive evidence, so all I have to go on is gut-feeling and deduction.

An IBWO in flight would not be in the posture he depicts it in, unless the bird was below him or it was gaining height. In his notes, he states "On the final downstroke the bird climbed through canopy affording a better view of the bird dorsally". It is therefore reasonable to assume that he was not afforded a good view of the bird dorsally prior to this, particularly as the bird would have almost certainly been above his eye-level. We are lead to believe by Cornell that IBWOs typically have a 8 Hz wing beat cycle. Thus a single downstroke would last approximately 1/16th of a second. I am suggesting that it is unreasonable to base a sketch on a view of the bird that lasted for 1/16th of a second. It is therefore likely that his sketch is based half on impression and half on wishful thinking and the features noted on it are there more to demonstrate to the outside world that what he saw must have been an IBWO than on a really honest view of what he saw.

No I don't think Tyler is a complete fraud. I think he believes he probably saw an IBWO and really really wishes it was one. I would also really wish I'd seen one if I'd spent two years of my life looking for one species amidst all the hype. I also think if he was really truthful with himself, he probably knows that it might not have been one and indeed probably was not. I think he's probably quite a good birder and certainly a keen and ambitious one - certainly very keen to see an IBWO and dearly loves the kudos afforded to him by those that believe he has seen one. I just question whether the keenness and kudos have in the instance outweighed his honesty
 
No I don't think Tyler is a complete fraud. I think he believes he probably saw an IBWO and really really wishes it was one. ..................................... I just question whether the keenness and kudos have in the instance outweighed his honesty

Two contradictory statements? Is he only a partial fraud?

Either you're a liar and a fraud or you're not. Make up your mind.
 
There is a significant difference between reading more than can be safely read into an observation and deliberately falsifying accounts. Its is possible to be 100% accurate in reporting what you believe you saw whilst at the same time (inaccurately) saying that there is no other alternative to explain what you think you saw.
 
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my issues with the sketch have nothing to do with how life-like or artistic it is, merely to do with the angle at which he has drawn it from, which is highly unlikely to be the angle he saw it from.

I have to disagree having sat in several gardens watching would be artists paint "what they see" of several different birds and watching the same bird (in the case most immediately to mind an adult male Ruby-throated Hummingbird) be depicted in several different postures (including some I did not see the bird take during this "observation", I have seen people depict different postures from a bird than those presented. If this was the easiest posture for him to draw quickly, it is the most likely posture for him to present it in.
 
Two contradictory statements? Is he only a partial fraud?

Either you're a liar and a fraud or you're not. Make up your mind.

When it comes to bird records, I think its a continuum rather than a straight yes / no. If you read the post in its entirety to pick up on the subtler context, I think you should realise what I mean. Particularly note the use of the word “question”.
 
Two contradictory statements? Is he only a partial fraud?

Either you're a liar and a fraud or you're not. Make up your mind.

Ilya explained the subtlety well enough. It's for this reason that on this side of the Atlantic we invented the term "stringy". It's common enough - even with relatively good, competent birders - they just don't quite control their imagination enough. It can be VERY tempting to string and very hard to resist when you have a half-decent (but not 100%) view.
The latest auburn update here - same news as ever:
http://www.auburn.edu/academic/scie.../faculty/webpages/hill/ivorybill/Updates.html

Sean
 
His diagrams make it clear that he observed the bird first from the side, about 200 feet away and 50 feet high. That view showed him that the bird was "largely black" with white trailing edge of the wing and white visible both on the upstroke and downstroke. He also noted the manner of flight. Certainly his notes thus far are in agreement with the view he had. Then he observed the bird fly away from him while it gained altitude, giving him a clear view of the back. It is not clear from the notes exactly how long he saw the bird from the latter angle. He mentioned he saw it at that angle "after the final downstroke", but his drawings indicate the total view was 5-6 seconds and the latter angle was almost half of that, which implies (though he doesn't explicitly state it) that the bird was gliding upward after the final downstroke. At the very least, an accounting of his dorsal view as 1/16th of a second does not agree with the diagrams he drew.

Ilya, from your problematic "1/16 of a second" you have done quite the long distance personality profile of Tyler Hicks, with assumptions about how much of a fraud he is (apparently not "complete"), his capacity for self-delusion ("really really wishes", not "truthful with himself"), and his veracity ("outweighed his honesty"). Might I suggest, Ilya, that your "gut feeling" is that the Ivory-billed Woodpecker is extinct. Based on that, you have made a series of impolite assumptions about Tyler Hicks which fits your gut feeling. I would suggest that such a personality profile performed over the Internet without any actual contact with Mr. Hicks is extremely unreliable.
 
I have to disagree having sat in several gardens watching would be artists paint "what they see" of several different birds and watching the same bird (in the case most immediately to mind an adult male Ruby-throated Hummingbird) be depicted in several different postures (including some I did not see the bird take during this "observation", I have seen people depict different postures from a bird than those presented. If this was the easiest posture for him to draw quickly, it is the most likely posture for him to present it in.

Yes, but at some point the artist must have either seen the features he / she was drawing, or deduced these from prior knowledge of the bird. If the latter, then this undermines the pupose of field notes. I'm questioning how Tyler could have had a reasonable view of the features he's drawn given that a dorsal view of the bird was almost certainly only visible for a fraction of a second (see my post after the one you've quoted).
 
He mentioned he saw it at that angle "after the final downstroke", but his drawings indicate the total view was 5-6 seconds and the latter angle was almost half of that, which implies (though he doesn't explicitly state it) that the bird was gliding upward after the final downstroke.

So Campephilus woodies glide and have variable wing beat rates when Tyler observes them, but not when Cornell use video analyses to distinguish between IBWOs and PIWOs?
 
But, as I see it (and please correct me if I'm wrong) Ilya's original complaint about the sketch is that it is a top-down view rather than the view you would expect if you'd seen a woodpecker take off from a tree. Nothing to do with artistry, or lack of. Surely even a terrible artist would draw the view he/she saw & if Hicks is half the birder he is sometimes claimed to be on this thread he should know what field sketches should be about-a sketch of what you saw, not what you could have seen if you were above the bird.

Top down view vs on tree take-off position - to a non-artist this does not matter. I would be more interested in getting the 'field-marks' right rather than getting the view right. I've attempted to draw from a picture and even that attempt has resulted in a changed 'view' of said drawing.
 
So Campephilus woodies glide and have variable wing beat rates when Tyler observes them, but not when Cornell use video analyses to distinguish between IBWOs and PIWOs?

Oh, please. Just look at Tyler's notes again if you care. His notes do not convey every detail of his encounter (an impossible task), which is what leads us to fill in the gaps. I have postulated an aerobatic maneuver many birds use to gain altitude rapidly at the expense of air speed which agree with Hicks' notes and diagram. Your 1/16 of a second dorsal view does not agree with his diagram. That does not mean I am right, but at least I did not impugn the character of someone I don't know by extrapolating from a poor assumption.
 
Re-read my post carefully, particularly noting the use of the word attempt. As Imaginos has kindly pointed out for me, my issues with the sketch have nothing to do with how life-like or artistic it is, merely to do with the angle at which he has drawn it from, which is highly unlikely to be the angle he saw it from.


Like I said in the above post - to a non-artist, the getting the field marks right would be the highest priorty, not the point of view.
 
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