Ivory-billed Woodpecker (formerly updates) (10 Viewers)

[humminbird]

From the link posted by Ilya :

"On the final down stroke the bird climbed through canopy affording a better view of the bird dorsally. The bird appeared long (almost loon-like) in flight. The large white wing patches were clearly visible and the white lines running from the neck down the flank were visible as well. "

If I remember correctly the white on an IBWO neck goes onto the back, not down the flank. This could make you question whether it was it a PIWO with white in the wings or an IBWO with aberrant white coloration on the neck.

I find it very hard to believe that someone of Tyler Hicks apparent reputation as a birder, describing an IBWO, would make such an error of terminology when describing one of IBWOs diagnostic features.

So, is the description or the observation mistaken?

Cheers,

Very good catch. PIWO unless he can explain why he does not mention these extending to the back instead of the flank (underwing).

 

[Jane Turner]

Very good catch. PIWO unless he can explain why he does not mention these extending to the back instead of the flank (underwing).

Its unlikely, since by second hand account the viewing was extremely brief. Hick's himself used the rather unfortunate time descriptor of milliseconds. So its unlikely that he has more than impression of the bill, dorsal stripe etc. Pity really.

We should of course wait to see the first hand account.

 

[humminbird]

Its unlikely, since by second hand account the viewing was extremely brief. Hick's himself used the rather unfortunate time descriptor of milliseconds. So its unlikely that he has more than impression of the bill, dorsal stripe etc. Pity really.

We should of course wait to see the first hand account.

These are from transcripts of the field notes. What more first hand account are we waiting for?

 

[Ilya Maclean]

My comments are based on a first hand reading of the account. I question how you are assuming this was a "relatively brief" observation when we have no indication of how long the bird was in view.

As to the second, my question is, is there in fact a third observation by Hicks or is it the figment of repeated comments with no source of origin. It would be very surprising, odd, unusual, inappropriate, and I don't know what other adjective to use, for Auburn to choose to publish all but this amazingly good set of field notes IF they exist.

I assume it was relatively brief as it was a bird in flight in a forest and such views of birds are in my experience almost always relatively brief. Furthermore, I presumed he would have stated so if it was a prolonged. I agree entirely with your statements regarding Hick's reported third sighting.

Bonsaibirder - like you I'm curious about the flank stripes . Thanks for pointing this detail out to me as it escaped my attention and is far more consistent with it being a Piliated:

http://www.fws.gov/ivorybill/images/Sibley-art-for-web.gif

On a slightly seperate note, I'm always struck by the relative frequency with which the white trailing edges to the wings of birds in flight are mentioned in relation to other features. Personally I find it quite difficult to distinguish between the upper and underwing and see clear wing markings of birds in flight and flapping relatively quickly. I find it much easier to note features such as tail shape and body + bare part colouration. Am I alone in this?

I've never seen a Piliated

 

[Harold Stiver]

.... there is no reason why a good photograph/video can not be produced.

Derek

As an avid bird photographer, this is something I have thought about quite a bit..Just how hard is it to get a shot of an IBWO if you see one. I've concluded:

For a perched bird: With either manual or autofocus, 2-3 seconds should be plenty of time to get an ID shot virtually all the time. Even if the bird flies, you should be able to follow and get a good enough shot in the first second of flight. Even relatively inexperienced photographers should accomplish this.

For a bird in flight: if you have no obstructions, you should be able to get a good enough shot on autofocus.If you have obstructions, you are facing the most difficult shot in bird photography, as soon as the subject intersects with an obstruction, your cameras focus will likely be lost or move to the obstruction.
if you use manual focus, you would need to be very experienced and probably have the bird in the viewfinder for a longer time.
if I was in this situation I would set my camera on one-shot focus, and I would feather the shutter release. That is, I would repeatedly try to acquire focus, and be prepared to complete the shot immediatedly that I do. This is a very difficult technique which takes a lot of experience.

Therefore, I think that a bird that is perched for a few seconds should be relatively easy to get a shot of, but a bird in flight may be very difficult, especially for a photographer who is not highly experienced.

I think I would use the following settings:
Keep the shutter speed at a minimum of 1/1000sec.
Set the ISO to 400 (800 at a stretch)
Set the depth of field as large as possible, after satisfying the above.
Shoot in RAW mode
Set the focus at auto- One shot mode if you think you have the skills to use it on a moving subject.

 

[John Eaton]

As an avid bird photographer, this is something I have thought about quite a bit..Just how hard is it to get a shot of an IBWO if you see one. I've concluded:

For a perched bird: With either manual or autofocus, 2-3 seconds should be plenty of time to get an ID shot virtually all the time. Even if the bird flies, you should be able to follow and get a good enough shot in the first second of flight. Even relatively inexperienced photographers should accomplish this.

For a bird in flight: if you have no obstructions, you should be able to get a good enough shot on autofocus.If you have obstructions, you are facing the most difficult shot in bird photography, as soon as the subject intersects with an obstruction, your cameras focus will likely be lost or move to the obstruction.
if you use manual focus, you would need to be very experienced and probably have the bird in the viewfinder for a longer time.
if I was in this situation I would set my camera on one-shot focus, and I would feather the shutter release. That is, I would repeatedly try to acquire focus, and be prepared to complete the shot immediatedly that I do. This is a very difficult technique which takes a lot of experience.

Therefore, I think that a bird that is perched for a few seconds should be relatively easy to get a shot of, but a bird in flight may be very difficult, especially for a photographer who is not highly experienced.

I think I would use the following settings:
Keep the shutter speed at a minimum of 1/1000sec.
Set the ISO to 400 (800 at a stretch)
Set the depth of field as large as possible, after satisfying the above.
Shoot in RAW mode
Set the focus at auto- One shot mode if you think you have the skills to use it on a moving subject.

Interesting, as many photographers I know (including myself) have the lens on manual when in a forest. Reason being that leaves, branches etc invariably mess up autofocus. For a bird the size of a IBWO it would take very little time to focus manually on a bird 20 to 40 yards away.

 

[Harold Stiver]

Interesting, as many photographers I know (including myself) have the lens on manual when in a forest. Reason being that leaves, branches etc invariably mess up autofocus. For a bird the size of a IBWO it would take very little time to focus manually on a bird 20 to 40 yards away.

I use manual in the same situation as well. However, I've been thinking about the specific situation with the IBWO, it seems to me that you would expect to find a bird in flight to have periods of unobstructed view followed by large obstructions. Personally I feel that in this situation I would be most confident in trying to pick up the target each time it was free of obstructions with one-shot autofocus. I don't like Continous mode in this situation as your focus can move so far off that it becomes impossible to re-acquire.

I agree that manual focus may well be the choice of someone else in this situation, and may be equally successful.

Of course, with a bird that is not in flight, it should be easy with any focusing method.

 

[Jane Turner]

These are from transcripts of the field notes. What more first hand account are we waiting for?

I was under the impression that they (the Dec 24th 2006) were not from the original field notes, and have not been reported by Hicks at all, unlike the Dec 24th 2005 (shopping list) field notes.

If there are first hand notes from the most recent sighting I'd love to see them.

 

[humminbird]

I was under the impression that they (the Dec 24th 2006) were not from the original field notes, and have not been reported by Hicks at all, unlike the Dec 24th 2005 (shopping list) field notes.

If there are first hand notes from the most recent sighting I'd love to see them.

The title of the page reads "Field Notes of Sight Records From Florida", so I would assume (I know, dangerous) that they are field notes. Does that not seem logical? The drawings also apear free hand.

 

[emupilot]

I was under the impression that they (the Dec 24th 2006) were not from the original field notes, and have not been reported by Hicks at all, unlike the Dec 24th 2005 (shopping list) field notes.

If there are first hand notes from the most recent sighting I'd love to see them.

Auburn has not put field notes from the 2006-2007 season on the web. The description of Tyler Hicks' Christmas Eve sighting is under the 1/7/2007 update here.

 

[humminbird]

Its does... but unless I'm being really unobservant (which is possible) I can't see the latest sighting there.

I was being unobservant and I apologize.

I must say though that it seems Tyler Hicks is remarkably lucky on Christmas Eve! It apears he has had two possible sightings on that date back to back years!

I await these field notes and drawings VERY eagerly!

 

[Jane Turner]

No need to apologise... I just deleted the post you replied and was about to repost it attached to your reply since emupilot snuck in between us (as it were).

There probably won't be much chance of extensive notes because the view was so short. I'm sure there was a newspaper report were Hicks used the words, 'a millisecond later she was gone'.

Probably not enough time to report anything more than first impressions.

 

[emupilot]

There probably won't be much chance of extensive notes because the view was so short. I'm sure there was a newspaper report were Hicks used the words, 'a millisecond later she was gone'.

Probably not enough time to report anything more than first impressions.

The report on the webpage isn't a "first impression" - it's a desription of all the field marks of a female Ivory-billed Woodpecker. While we would all love to see the notes (even though we have no professional need to do so), there is no reason to believe that Hicks' notes would somehow have less detail than the web page summary.

 

[Jane Turner]

The report on the webpage isn't a "first impression" - it's a desription of all the field marks of a female Ivory-billed Woodpecker. While we would all love to see the notes (even though we have no professional need to do so), there is no reason to believe that Hicks' notes would somehow have less detail than the web page summary.

If the view is a short as suggested, then it can only be a first impression. There isnt time to check lighting and orientation effects, pin down exactly what was where, which feather tracts were involved etc etc.

Unless you have got a photographic memory, or a camera there is no way you can creat an acceptable description without fabrication.

But we have this debate before and you didn't agree then!

 

[humminbird]

The report on the webpage isn't a "first impression" - it's a desription of all the field marks of a female Ivory-billed Woodpecker. While we would all love to see the notes (even though we have no professional need to do so), there is no reason to believe that Hicks' notes would somehow have less detail than the web page summary.

Some of us do indeed have a professional need to verify this bird before we could include it in our materials!

 

[emupilot]

If the view is a short as suggested, then it can only be a first impression. There isnt time to check lighting and orientation effects, pin down exactly what was where, which feather tracts were involved etc etc.

Unless you have got a photographic memory, or a camera there is no way you can creat an acceptable description without fabrication.

But we have this debate before and you didn't agree then!

If you had to identify an Ivory-bill based on its primary projection or the length of its bill relative to is head, I might agree with you. This bird is not difficult to identify, however, and it does not take long to see a glowing white bill (in otherwise gloomy conditions), black crest, and brilliant white secondaries and some primaries (the latter observed in flight as well as perched). That is enough to eliminate even the most fanciful mutant Pileated.

 

[Aracari]

This won't go anywhere. Words are just words. I can tell you I just saw a Harpy Eagle down the street park. Would you believe it? I can give you a detailed description of the bird if needed.

Sorry for saying it again but, without a good photo or video this is pretty worthless in this case.

 

[Jane Turner]

Quite a few people do seem to get themselves hoodwinked. Let's see what emerges.

It will be an either or with the crest/bill in terms of safely discernable on the view.

 

[pcoin]

account of Hicks' Christmas 2006 sighting

If the view is a short as suggested, then it can only be a first impression. There isnt time to check lighting and orientation effects, pin down exactly what was where, which feather tracts were involved etc etc.

Unless you have got a photographic memory, or a camera there is no way you can creat an acceptable description without fabrication.

Well, as everyone has been saying, it would be really interesting to see the original account of the Hicks "definitive" Christmas 2006 sighting. There is a news report on the Internet from a newspaper, The Anniston (Alabama) Star for January 31, 2007, here. Of course, people get misquoted in newspapers all the time, but here are some relevant quotes--note that I had to reconstruct some non-ASCII punctuation:

"I came around the bend, and there on a tupelo tree, about two meters off the water, was a female Ivory-billed woodpecker," Hicks told The Star. "She looked at me and I looked at her and in a millisecond she was gone."

He described a surreal moment held in abeyance when the finest details grew mammoth. The light was bad, the day was overcast, but the bill of the woodpecker was a brilliant white and her colors -- dark head, white markings on the back, a white trailing edge in flight--all hammered themselves into his memory, for good.

The article goes on to describe the (inevitable) camera issues that come up when a beautiful Ivory-bill heaves into view. (Refer to my previous list of IBWO excuses for variations on this theme.)

My worry with a (reportedly) brief sighting like this is that one can see what one is looking for--for an instant. We've all done that--seen someone at a distance and had a mental flash of a familiar friend or family member, and then it is someone different when one has a better look. I had that happen once with a co-worker who was home dying from leukemia--saw someone down a hallway at work that looked very similar, and in a flash I knew it was her--almost ran to her in tears, then realized it was not the dying woman at all. I've misidentified birds in the same fashion more times than I care to count. (Of course, I've identified familiar birds correctly based on a brief glimpse many times as well.) That is what bothers me about all these brief looks--they can all be colored by our expectatations and emotions, and for a moment, we can all see exactly that which we want to see. It is human nature, and no birder is immune, no matter how expert.

 

[pcoin]

latest on waterfowl-produced double knocks

In case not seen by some of you, I thought this abstract from the Wilson Journal would be of interest. A quote from the abstract (whole paper requires institutional access to the journal, which I do not have):

Close similarities in amplitude ratios, peak-to-peak times between raps, and auditory quality between ARU recordings and wing collisions from a Gadwall flock illustrate the ability of flying ducks to produce sounds easily mistaken for the double raps of Campephilus woodpeckers.

This phenomenon was also described earlier in the Cornell final report on the Arkansas searches for 2005-06, available here--a relevant quote:

As noted in the results section, we believe that duck wings produce double-knock sounds with surprising frequency. In the field, we have observed Gadwalls and Mallards producing double knocks both in flight and during a short wing whir given while on the water, directly after preening. ...Yet some apparent duck-generated double knocks are surprisingly crisp and may be mistaken for woodpecker knocks, especially at a distance. Some of the sounds of unknown origin presented by Charif et al. (2005) may be duck knocks.

Certainly double-knocks have never been considered definitive, but everyone has treated them as suggestive. (I'd sure try to find the source if I were out in IBWO country and heard something resembling a double-knock!)