Ivory-Billed Woodpecker continued (1 Viewer)

[Hauksen]

Hi Mike,

I asked "Please show me what I missed if anything. tks"

Well, I don't actually think it's a case of "missing" anything, since I've brought it up so often. Quite clearly, you're purposefully ignoring a challenge you are unable to anwer.

So for the third time in this thread, I'm telling you, in no ambiguous terms, that your analysis of the Luneau video woodpecker's flight is complete and utter bogus for very specific aerodynamic and mathematical reasons I have pointed out in my past posts:

Ivory-Billed Woodpecker continued

Nice mature and rational response where you totally don't look like a tool. Honest. How about a mature response regarding your evidence and DNA profiling of the feathers? Or have they conveniently been lost? This is upthread dawdleson..............please be considerate............or no coupons...

www.birdforum.net

You'll find the relevant details if you click through the chain of links in the post. It will take a couple of clicks because each time you evade the issue, another link gets added to that chain.

For anyone reading this thread: This is the litmus test for scientific honesty. If Mike keeps running away from it, that means he is not interested in the "seeking the truth", but rather in peddling his preconceived notion here on birdforum.

Kind regards,

Henning

 

[Deb Burhinus]

possible time wise come up with YOUR OWN detailed opinion or not. Saying "its all not convincing" over and over is not really a scientific review. Or maybe it is, matters not. You saying Hill et al. relates their evidence is very suggestive of IB and agreeing with that was a start.

I am not trying to provide a ’scientific view’ of your evidence, there are others that can do that better yet you seem reluctant to address their challenges too (see Henning repeatedly trying to get you to address the interpretation of the flight pattern in the Luneau video) so I doubt it would make much difference. It is you that forces people to provide you with resumes since you seek to undermine and justify all the time why their views are not valid and use their experience or lack thereof, to disqualify their contribution to the debate. You have just done it again with Kaufman! WHICH BTW I didn’t post for your benefit but as an opposing view for the benefit of others reading the thread.

And finally I see you could not answer this: "Please advise me if you are accepting of the Hill Mennill Abstract and paper as written or are you parsing out a few sentences and agree with those sentences only?

answered in my earlier post upthread and quoted again below for your convenience

I have read the paper in full and am in agreement with it’s conclusions that ‘definitive evidence’ remains forthcoming. I also agree based on the results of the research, ie putative cavities, putative calls etc and the fact that someone may have seen an IB, that there may be enough to warrant further funding to continue the search in the hope just one IB can be found but ’may’ isn’t any where near close to ‘is’ and my opinion anyway counts for little in this regard I imagine. It’s those that hold the conservation funding in the States that you need to convince of whether it’s worth continuing your searches I suspect.

A. T. Wayne noticed IBs were harder to shoot and even approach after one prior year of hunting and killing ~ 12, then they couldn't easily kill one of the several that were still said to be around, detected at over one hundred yards. It is all in the literature. There is nothing unusual about animals getting hard to see, or locate or photograph in short periods of time.

Well again, I wonder about causation and correlation when it comes to looking at the evidence. I am a birdwatcher of 30 years or so, and I can say without hesitation that some species, eg.Willow Tit. Spotted Flycatcher, Lesser Spotted Woodpecker etc etc have become harder to find because their populations have crashed over the past 30 years (I am happy to back this up with scientific evidence if necessary ). Yes, species adapt and change even evolve over time, but how do you rule out they are hard to find as there are simply far less of them than there were in the past? I am sure no species changes so much it renders them invisible albeit still there? The birder coverage has increased, the equipment has become more sophisticated, the habitat has decreased, the more birders that are out there looking and people have to admit, the longer the time goes by without definitive video/photographic evidence, the less likely IMHO, even one IB will be found.

 

[ZanderII]

Numerous researchers have evidence that the bird is "hard to get on" due to several hundred being shot for museums and many more killed for other reasons when the population was already below ~ 2,000. It's is extremely common for animals and populations to change their behavior in days let alone decades in the face of lethal anthropogenic input even if it is only very loud gunshots. A. T. Wayne noticed IBs were harder to shoot and even approach after one prior year of hunting and killing ~ 12, then they couldn't easily kill one of the several that were still said to be around, detected at over one hundred yards. It is all in the literature. There is nothing unusual about animals getting hard to see, or locate or photograph in short periods of time. There are pictures and videos but their quality is not good enough for some.

I have responded to this point before but, Pileated Woodpecker (PIWO) was also hunted in the bottomland forests and aside for some extra pressure on IBWO for specimens as the species reached the extinction vortex, there is no evidence that hunting pressure differed between the species. Today Pileated Woodpeckers are shy-ish in some places, but you can still see and photograph them with little difficulty. We know that it was possible to photograph IBWO and IMWO* when they were both extant, so they weren't wraiths then and had they not become extinct, there is no reason why they would have evolved to become wraith-like after 1944, nor for them to have maintained this trait in the contemporary absence of hunting pressure. Fundamentally there isn't a bird anywhere on the planet that is capable of being even 5% as elusive as this - to avoid detection by so many different investigatory techniques, not even the likes of Elusive Antpitta and Nocturnal Curassow.

The 'wraith hypothesis' and 100m flush distance are just excuses for failure to obtain proof and aren't supported by empirical information or a base in biological reality. The reason there are no identifiable images is because the candidate ones are distant and/or badly-photographed PIWOs.

*Imperial Woodpecker

 

[Mono]

There is no debate going on here. Can the extinct/extant camps just agree to differ?

 

[Deb Burhinus]

There is no debate going on here. Can the extinct/extant camps just agree to differ?

Posting cartoons of birds in trees don’t really further the debate and is not helpful imo

 

[ZanderII]

There is no debate going on here. Can the extinct/extant camps just agree to differ?

I'm pretty sure this is a debate, if factoids shared and then shredded counts as a debate.

 

[etudiant]

Truthseeker is on to something.
We have not afaik ever previously had value placed on individual species. The bonuses placed on killed Imperial Woodpeckers in Mexico by the drug cartels were obviously effective. That suggests that a finder bonus for the IB would work.
I'd happily contribute $10K for unequivocal evidence of any IB woodpeckers in the US as of now, 2021.
Obviously I'd love for others to contribute as well, to make the pot bigger.

 

[1TruthSeeker]

I have responded to this point before but, Pileated Woodpecker (PIWO) was also hunted in the bottomland forests and aside for some extra pressure on IBWO for specimens as the species reached the extinction vortex, there is no evidence that hunting pressure differed between the species. Today Pileated Woodpeckers are shy-ish in some places, but you can still see and photograph them with little difficulty. We know that it was possible to photograph IBWO and IMWO* when they were both extant, so they weren't wraiths then and had they not become extinct, there is no reason why they would have evolved to become wraith-like after 1944, nor for them to have maintained this trait in the contemporary absence of hunting pressure. Fundamentally there isn't a bird anywhere on the planet that is capable of being even 5% as elusive as this - to avoid detection by so many different investigatory techniques, not even the likes of Elusive Antpitta and Nocturnal Curassow.

The 'wraith hypothesis' and 100m flush distance are just excuses for failure to obtain proof and aren't supported by empirical information or a base in biological reality. The reason there are no identifiable images is because the candidate ones are distant and/or badly-photographed PIWOs.

*Imperial Woodpecker

Zander, There is substantial evidence that IB is much more wary than PIWO; this from people who reported from the field. Only took 10 minutes to locate this small example of evidence below. You are the only person of hundreds that have ever claimed behavioral parity between IB and PI in this context. How odd.

So you have again presented erroneous and purposely misleading opinions. We do have younger readers learning about research methods and others that might just enjoy a truthful exchange of facts and evidence.

Evident in some of your posts and your latest, is a pattern of reader abuse and pseudoscience. Of course you may actually be somehow unfamiliar with the well reported FACTS, have no personal field experience with PIWOs and/or IBs, or maybe again you are bent on wasting my time and bringing the quality of discussion down.

On behavioral differences between the subject species.

J.V. Dennis The Great Cypress Swamps
Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge, USA (1988)
Google Scholar
[5]
J.V. Dennis
Letter to Charles Welch (July 3, 1985)

Dennis has a strong history of providing us all actual IB knowledge. He discovered the remnant population of Ivory-billed Woodpeckers in Cuba in 1948, that leading to the rediscovery of '80s. Dennis continued searching in the US and reported 3 IB sightings/detections over twenty years. A tape of his, not that long ago was likely an IB, it is on Cornell's Mc. Lab.

He was likely the most successful IB searcher post Tanner, the latter being basically led by JJ Kuhn.

With that in mind he said this about swamp habits in the US:

“It takes a couple of years to search out and find the Ivorybill in only a single swamp.”

“It is next to impossible to obtain photographs of an Ivorybill in a southern swamp unless a nesting site is discovered.”

Then,

A.A. Allen, P.P. Kellogg Recent observations on the Ivory-billed Woodpecker

Auk, 54 (1937), pp. 164-184

CrossRefView Record in ScopusGoogle Scholar

These famous authors on Ivory-billed:

“We had hunted for three days for this particular pair of birds without ever hearing them, even though we were frequently within three hundred yards of the nest, which we finally found because we happened to be within hearing distance when the birds changed places on the nest.”

“They are not noisy except when disturbed.”

“Their voice does not carry nearly as far as that of the Pileated Woodpecker.”

“In the big trees which they normally frequent they are easily overlooked.”

“We camped for five days within three hundred feet of one nest and, except when the birds were about to change places on the nest or were disturbed, seldom heard them.”

And here a different type of evidence, economic market analysis:

IBWO specimens/skins were worth $20 each in the 1890s when there were still scores of swamps/areas with several birds each. PIWO were not worth collecting. This all when people in SE rural areas averaged 1$/day in earnings. Why is it, if the IB was so easily approached according to you, were searchers WITH GUNS, with long range (especially in relation to how close you need for skeptic proof picture) deserving of 20 times the daily wage???. Seems to be a disconnect which is rare when markets and wages are involved. Seems it wasn't that easy of a bird to even shot from 100 yards even in 1880.


*v50n4arthurtwayne.pdf (carolinabirdclub.org)

bottom page 106

Since PIWO is so much, much, more common in the literature, with magnitudes more studies, observations and sightings than IB, you should be able to match this fraction of the IB evidence in 10 minutes, assuming you were right. Please be fair and keep track of actually how long it takes you to get 3 or more different referances with a total of ~ 8 points/quotes or more or something equivalent.

Thank you

 

[Hauksen]

Hi,

The 'wraith hypothesis' and 100m flush distance are just excuses for failure to obtain proof and aren't supported by empirical information or a base in biological reality. The reason there are no identifiable images is because the candidate ones are distant and/or badly-photographed PIWOs.

There's a common problem in statistics that called "lamp post effect" ... and any study on the flush distance of supposed Ivory-Billed Woodpeckers would be highly suspect of being subject to the opposite effect: You would only identify woodpeckers as Ivory-Billed if you couldn't get close enough for a reliable identification (which would show them to belong to different species).

It's my impression too that there is no actual evidence for the 100 m flush distance claim, so I put this down as another post-fact rationalization that instrumentalizes hearsay to excuse the continued failure to come up with clear evidence for the continued survival of the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker.

Regards,

Henning

 

[ZanderII]

Zander, There is substantial evidence that IB is much more wary than PIWO; this from people who reported from the field. Only took 10 minutes to locate this small example of evidence below. You are the only person of hundreds that have ever claimed behavioral parity between IB and PI in this context. How odd.

I didn't claim parity, only that both species were hunted and thus subject to the same selection pressures, albeit with greater pressure on IBWO because of their greater value (beyond protein). Large woodpeckers are also hunted elsewhere in the world too.

So you have again presented erroneous and purposely misleading opinions. We do have younger readers learning about research methods and others that might just enjoy a truthful exchange of facts and evidence.

Indeed, maybe answer those questions repeatedly posed to you about flight mechanics then.

Evident in some of your posts and your latest, is a pattern of reader abuse and pseudoscience.

Of course you may actually be somehow unfamiliar with the well reported FACTS, have no personal field experience with PIWOs and/or IBs, or maybe again you are bent on wasting my time and bringing the quality of discussion down.

I have field experience of Dryocopus in the Nearctic, Palearctic & Indian Subcontinent and of Campephilus across the Neotropics

Dennis has a strong history of providing us all actual IB knowledge. He discovered the remnant population of Ivory-billed Woodpeckers in Cuba in 1948, that leading to the rediscovery of '80s. Dennis continued searching in the US and reported 3 IB sightings/detections over twenty years. A tape of his, not that long ago was likely an IB, it is on Cornell's Mc. Lab.

Open up the spectogram of Dennis' recording and compare with a Red-breasted Nuthatch. That possibility wasn't discussed here: https://sora.unm.edu/sites/default/files/journals/nab/v029n03/p00647-p00651.pdf which is an oversight given the species routinely occurs in the region in winter

He was likely the most successful IB searcher post Tanner, the latter being basically led by JJ Kuhn.

Agree in that he took the first and last identifiable photographs of the species in Cuba.

Since PIWO is so much, much, more common in the literature, with magnitudes more studies, observations and sightings than IB, you should be able to match this fraction of the IB evidence in 10 minutes, assuming you were right. Please be fair and keep track of actually how long it takes you to get 3 or more different referances with a total of ~ 8 points/quotes or more or something equivalent.

Thank you

Sorry, I didn't get this bit Mike.

 

[ZanderII]

Truthseeker is on to something.
We have not afaik ever previously had value placed on individual species. The bonuses placed on killed Imperial Woodpeckers in Mexico by the drug cartels were obviously effective.

citation needed

 

[jurek]

I wonder whether some 'ivorybill sightings' may be birds which are not woodpeckers at all. For example, is it possible that a goldeneye, a hooded merganser or a bufflehead, briefly seen flying in a flooded forest, could be taken for a big, black 'woodpecker' with a white patch on secondaries? What is interesting that no recent report describes a red head.

 

[raymie]

I wonder whether some 'ivorybill sightings' may be birds which are not woodpeckers at all. For example, is it possible that a goldeneye, a hooded merganser or a bufflehead, briefly seen flying in a flooded forest, could be taken for a big, black 'woodpecker' with a white patch on secondaries? What is interesting that no recent report describes a red head.

I've never thought of this before but I could believe it. A scaup could possibly be mistaken for one, as well.

 

[Larry Sweetland]

I wonder whether some 'ivorybill sightings' may be birds which are not woodpeckers at all. For example, is it possible that a goldeneye, a hooded merganser or a bufflehead, briefly seen flying in a flooded forest, could be taken for a big, black 'woodpecker' with a white patch on secondaries? What is interesting that no recent report describes a red head.

Or perhaps a leucistic crow? Carrion Crows with white flight feathers are common in some places, though I don't know how often this occurs in American Crow (if at all).

 

[1TruthSeeker]

I didn't claim parity, only that both species were hunted and thus subject to the same selection pressures, albeit with greater pressure on IBWO because of their greater value (beyond protein). Large woodpeckers are also hunted elsewhere in the world too.


Indeed, maybe answer those questions repeatedly posed to you about flight mechanics then.

I have field experience of Dryocopus in the Nearctic, Palearctic & Indian Subcontinent and of Campephilus across the Neotropics



Open up the spectogram of Dennis' recording and compare with a Red-breasted Nuthatch. That possibility wasn't discussed here: https://sora.unm.edu/sites/default/files/journals/nab/v029n03/p00647-p00651.pdf which is an oversight given the species routinely occurs in the region in winter


Agree in that he took the first and last identifiable photographs of the species in Cuba.


Sorry, I didn't get this bit Mike.

As we see Zander has no response except to obfuscate. After only a small amount of the available evidence presented on relative wariness of the subject species, Zander has strategically capitulated.... and quickly. Nothing wrong with cartoons as a defense when in retreat. We must therefore conclude that the IB is the more wary of the 2. The world is right, after a momentary wobble.

Spider lady, Zander, others keep bringing up missed Q of some illustrious poster. I can not see various posters comments by design, this in response to their bad behavior, etc.

Regardless I will try to get to it. He/she must however put down an intelligent, complete argument on why every piece of evidence is wrong W/O ignoring points already made by IB proponents here. Parsing out of small or perceived larger problems in flight mechanics, data, and its interpretations by me are mainly due to the questioners poor understanding on the small modulating range capabilities within a species. Modulations in HZ of Aves, is relatively small compared to the difference measured in the subject IB videos compared to PI.

If they can show example(s) of wing beat HZ varying more that 1 SD the usual ~ 5.5 Hz for all PIs, or restated, and out of extreme curiosity, any PIWO that has a 40% higher HZ than all other known PIWO (after 3 second from a takeoff and out that would be a precedent. This causing me to publicly apologize, This odd, out of known range HZ value for PI would then possibly overlap the IB HZ seen in the Luneau (AR) and Collins (LA) videos HZ. The Rhein Imperial Woodpecker references and measurements certainly point to you having an impossible task in finding this super-charged PI.

If found though, please report the above asap. Also like to see any even 25 % in level flight Picidae variance on HZ of same bird or of different birds, but same species. Any of this will be reopen the subject immediately, I agree.

Sadly the lonely, unanswered poster is likely just preening and will realize he/she can not articulate much on the subject or any of the needed videos despite there being many, many hundreds if not thousands to look through to find a black swan and confirm 17 authors wrong and Collins. Best of luck though, and as you say to me hope you find this very rare creature,,,,,,get on it.

thanks

 

[Welsh Peregrine]

Where is the MEASURED frequency of Ivory-billed wingbeats? A different measurement from Pileated could indicate that this is an incorrect identification, but does not prove that it therefore must be Ivory-billed. Also, could you clearly state what you are claiming? Continuing survival of a viable population? Survival of a population beyond the accepted last sightings in the Singer Tract? The rediscovery being the last survivor? Thanks, Kelvin Britton

 

[ZanderII]

Or perhaps a leucistic crow? Carrion Crows with white flight feathers are common in some places, though I don't know how often this occurs in American Crow (if at all).

My bet for the late Cuban records, where an IBWO was glimpsed being chased by crows (and where no other big woodpeckers occur in sympatry).

 

[1TruthSeeker]

Where is the MEASURED frequency of Ivory-billed wingbeats? A different measurement from Pileated could indicate that this is an incorrect identification, but does not prove that it therefore must be Ivory-billed. Also, could you clearly state what you are claiming? Continuing survival of a viable population? Survival of a population beyond the accepted last sightings in the Singer Tract? The rediscovery being the last survivor? Thanks, Kelvin Britton

most upthread, but i am not near posting all peer reviewed evidence, yet, orgnanizing to and then showing some unpublished results perhaps and lesser know evidnece ..................and more. thanks

 

[ZanderII]

As we see Zander has no response except to obfuscate. After only a small amount of the available evidence presented on relative wariness of the subject species, Zander has strategically capitulated.... and quickly. Nothing wrong with cartoons as a defense when in retreat. We must therefore conclude that the IB is the more wary of the 2. The world is right, after a momentary wobble.

Spider lady, Zander, others keep bringing up missed Q of some illustrious poster. I can not see various posters comments by design, this in response to their bad behavior, etc.

Regardless I will try to get to it. He/she must however put down an intelligent, complete argument on why every piece of evidence is wrong W/O ignoring points already made by IB proponents here. Parsing out of small or perceived larger problems in flight mechanics and its intepreations by me are mainly due to the questioners poor understanding on the small modulating range capabilities within a species.

If they can show example(s) of wing beat HZ varying more that 1 SD the usual ~ 5.5 Hz for all PIs or restated and out of extreme curiosity any PIWO that has a 40% higher HZ than all other known PIWO after 3 second from a takeoff (in other words equal to t he Luneau and Collins videos HZ and in line with the Rhein inferences, Imperial)

Please report the above asap. Aslo like to see any even 25 % in level flight Picidae variance on HZ of same bird or of fiffents birds but same species. Any of this will be reopen the subject immediately, I agree.

Sadly the poster is likely just preening (look up for a confusing and confused species, in other words see IB is just as wary as PI hahah hahah ).

thanks

Tried running this through Google Translate and got nowhere.

 

[1TruthSeeker]

Where is the MEASURED frequency of Ivory-billed wingbeats? A different measurement from Pileated could indicate that this is an incorrect identification, but does not prove that it therefore must be Ivory-billed. Also, could you clearly state what you are claiming? Continuing survival of a viable population? Survival of a population beyond the accepted last sightings in the Singer Tract? The rediscovery being the last survivor? Thanks, Kelvin Britton

Quick summary on wing beta HZ: Campephilus, N clade, very rare species,

Ivory-billed flights see 3 videos HZ ` 8.7 and 8.4 and one sequence contains a possible short flight (must look myself) and include a hop, odd glide between 3 trees of a massive woodpecker. Also Cornell has some other direct evidence at 8 plus HZ of abird flying in Singer. Woodpeckers in these flight sequence had direct field measurement via corollary, birds 20 inches, PIWO is 16 inches. Videos have white in right places only for IB.

Inperial is 8.1 on rare films a few sequnces. In line perfect for IB larger cogener.

PIWO after 2 secs post takoff is almost always ~ 4 to 5.8 HZ/s with noticable wing bounding to human eye. Wing binding in IB is in general not noticed by human eye but is there . Tobalske has anal;ysed and graphed out the LA IB video Good for IB not for PI on multiple variablres. See various papers. by Collins .

hope that helps

ps....Note I added sentences to my last post upthread in light of your interest in Hz.