Vladimir Dinets posted this on ID Frontiers listserv
http://listserv.arizona.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0603d&L=birdwg01&T=0&P=3722
For anyone who hasn't heard of him - this is a man who knows how to find and watch animals and birds. His exploits are already legendary and rather extreme. He knows his stuff though.
http://dinets.travel.ru/ is his website. be amazed.
A few points on the woodpecker issue:
Whatever the genetics involved, it is a known fact that birds from certain
populations can become extremely difficult to find if they are heavily
persecuted. In Central Russia, where Northern goshawk has been shot on site
as vermin for decades, it is virtually impossible to see one, even where
this species is common. But in unpopulated parts of Siberia it can be tame
and noisy, especially around nests.
But I've never heard of such a thing happening to a woodpecker. Black
woodpecker used to be routinely shot by Russian hunters, either for its
habit of noisily following them along the trail, for being black and weird,
or simply because they are trigger-happy and stupid. But it is still very
tame and still often follows people, even though it is now rare in many
areas because of habitat loss and "sanitary logging" (it used to be a common
practice to remove snags in managed forests in Russia due to believe that
they are a sorce of fungal infections of living trees).
Why don't black woodpeckers become more shy, while goshawks do? I don't
know. Might have something to do with the amount of learning a chick gets
from its parents.
I bought the original rediscovery story, even though I was amazed that such
a huge bird could remain undetected for decades in a country with millions
of birders. Last summer I visited the area in question, and immediately
became VERY sceptical. It is small, not particularly inaccessible, and the
oldgrowth area is mostly a very narrow belt. Unless some hard evidence is
produced within the next few weeks, I think we should accept the sad fact.
But I'll still be checking every pileated woodpecker I see, just in case...
Vladimir Dinets
U. of Miami
