Ilya Maclean
charlatan
?????????????????????
-
Welcome to BirdForum, the internet's largest birding community with thousands of members from all over the world. The forums are dedicated to wild birds, birding, binoculars and equipment and all that goes with it.
Please register for an account to take part in the discussions in the forum, post your pictures in the gallery and more.
Ivory-billed Woodpecker (formerly updates) (6 Viewers)
- Thread starter KC Foggin
- Start date
?????????????????????
Right. Being a typical Salar, I'll rise to the bait.
Now why do I think it's immaterial what differences I may have noticed, because you're going to tell me anyway!
rob stoff
Well-known member
Right. Being a typical Salar, I'll rise to the bait.
Now why do I think it's immaterial what differences I may have noticed, because you're going to tell me anyway!
no, I'm not, fire away
Rob
Jane Turner
Well-known member
salar53; said:
WHAT????
There is absolutely nothing in common! In one case there is well-defined multi-observer photographic evidence... that still isn't/may not be enough to confirm the record, and in the other there is a whole great heap of heresay....
Or do you mean that in all likelihood they are both doomed if not already extinct?
Ah - I see a few other people have already got here
Last edited:
I'm referring specifically to the Druridge Bay Slender-billed Curlew and I contend that there are many similarities and I stand by my comments in post 13478.
Yes, very sadly, both the Ivory-billed Woodpecker and the Slender-billed Curlew may both be doomed, and that is yet another similarity.
And now to photographs. Despite the photographs that were taken of the Druridge Bay bird, there is still dispute over its identity!
Even some of those who have actually seen the bird will not tick it as a definite Slender-billed Curlew.
This being so, it could be said that there are better photographs of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker - those taken by Fielding Lewis in 1971.
Even sceptics like yourself have stated that Lewis's photographs depict an Ivory-billed woodpecker. Why, given a spoonful or two of Dr Mike's standard deviations, that bird could still be alive!
And just as Gomphus watched her bird for six hours, so Nancy Higginbotham watched a purported Ivory-billed Woodpecker for "many hours".
And people believe and they ridicule.
Last edited:
Fred Virrazzi
Well-known member
A few revisions
Some discussions on Allen's and Bergman's rule has led to negligible to no impacts on the resultant Hz calculation , speed or ID opinions of the LA bird but some words might/should change on the Pearl website. So I do not want anyone to get too bent out of shape because of this. tks for your understanding.
Does anyone have any comments/reference on whether there is or isn't allometry in PIWO and /or IBWO, especially relative wing body length, cord, mass dimensions? These things are just minor no matter the answer but it needs to be gotten rid of as its a small distraction amongst larger distractions that occurred this week.
IBWO mass has only been obtained a few times. Are the three weights on IBWO 1 lb, I lb, and more than 1 lb or was the latter 1 1/4 lb ? I lent two references out.
Jane said >>>>whole great heap of heresay....<<<<
You never spoke to anyone that has seen a putative Giant Woodpecker,? you talk to Dave and there are others here too that posted today that have had up to 3 encounters.
Hello Salar, >>>This being so, it could be said that there are better photographs of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker - those taken by Fielding Lewis in 1971.<<<
These pixs worry me from a story that I trusted...... And if the bird is still with us you must invoke the wary clause. This adult bird was not associating with a nest and you walk up to it with a brownie?
I have a problem believing the dichotomy of that pix and what behaviors we see ourselves or hear that others claim to see...which is basically birds with flush distances that would be appropriate for areas molested by various rifles for decades. The tree is so straight with no foraging attraction but is attractive to ladders.
Agey, Heinzmann 67 to 69 is accepted by Pranty, no pixs but that seems to be solid. Several good reporters, all dead now. A biologist saw the bird in the same area in 71 too, but Pranty doesn't mention that year........don't know why, probably not submitted.
In LA RBC site the bird is listed as (E?). Its good they can't read.
good birdin.
Some discussions on Allen's and Bergman's rule has led to negligible to no impacts on the resultant Hz calculation , speed or ID opinions of the LA bird but some words might/should change on the Pearl website. So I do not want anyone to get too bent out of shape because of this. tks for your understanding.
Does anyone have any comments/reference on whether there is or isn't allometry in PIWO and /or IBWO, especially relative wing body length, cord, mass dimensions? These things are just minor no matter the answer but it needs to be gotten rid of as its a small distraction amongst larger distractions that occurred this week.
IBWO mass has only been obtained a few times. Are the three weights on IBWO 1 lb, I lb, and more than 1 lb or was the latter 1 1/4 lb ? I lent two references out.
Jane said >>>>whole great heap of heresay....<<<<
You never spoke to anyone that has seen a putative Giant Woodpecker,? you talk to Dave and there are others here too that posted today that have had up to 3 encounters.
Hello Salar, >>>This being so, it could be said that there are better photographs of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker - those taken by Fielding Lewis in 1971.<<<
These pixs worry me from a story that I trusted...... And if the bird is still with us you must invoke the wary clause. This adult bird was not associating with a nest and you walk up to it with a brownie?
I have a problem believing the dichotomy of that pix and what behaviors we see ourselves or hear that others claim to see...which is basically birds with flush distances that would be appropriate for areas molested by various rifles for decades. The tree is so straight with no foraging attraction but is attractive to ladders.
Agey, Heinzmann 67 to 69 is accepted by Pranty, no pixs but that seems to be solid. Several good reporters, all dead now. A biologist saw the bird in the same area in 71 too, but Pranty doesn't mention that year........don't know why, probably not submitted.
In LA RBC site the bird is listed as (E?). Its good they can't read.
good birdin.
Last edited:
Forget Julian Huxley - your gonna need some serious help from Aldous Huxley's medicine cabinet to get to see an IBWO in the latest Pearl Video.
Luke
Last edited:
rob stoff
Well-known member
or to slightly misquote Blake:
'when the doors of perception are cleansed everything will appear to man as it really is, Pileated.'
Oh brave new world that has such birders in it
Rob
Jane Turner
Well-known member
Spoken accounts are indeed just hearsay.
There are no written descriptions that pass muster. That is fact.
The Doors of Perception? Brave New World? Aldous Huxley?
Well you know of course that Aldous Huxley was stoned out of his mind when he wrote "The Doors of Perception."
rob stoff
Well-known member
Right. So he wrote "the Doors of Perception" when he was coming down from mind-altering, mind-blowing substances like mescaline.
No wonder he was seeing Pileateds!!!!!!!!!!!
dave_in_michigan
Well-known member
Hi Jane,
A small quibble, but first hand testimonies, whether written or spoken, are generally speaking not hearsay. Second-hand accounts are.
No argument from me there. In fact for IBWO at this point I don't think any written report alone would be uniformly accepted now without including good photo documentation and multi-person confirmations. Follow up confirmations would likely also be required for across the board acceptance. The most that even the best written report alone might do is prompt attempts at confirmation.
- Dave
Jane Turner
Well-known member
Ok Dave you have got me on a point of grammar
Whether or not a written description could be adequate is a debate to be had once there is a such description that is unequivocally describing and Ivory-billed Woodpecker. The first hurdle hasn't been passed yet.
Whether or not a written description could be adequate is a debate to be had once there is a such description that is unequivocally describing and Ivory-billed Woodpecker. The first hurdle hasn't been passed yet.
dave_in_michigan
Well-known member
wingspan calculation
I went ahead and took a shot at calculating wingspan from this "nearly directly below" image, which shows the wingspan pretty much fully extended in the reflection.
Using the zero point from before, I measure 40 degree view angle from the tree to this reflection. So from 75 feet up, the reflection would be 63 feet from the tree. Doing the calcs like before, I get 97.8 feet line of sight to the reflection, plus 12.6 from reflection to bird, so 110.4 feet total. The width of the wingspan in this image at 110.4 feet away would be 26.4 inches, but that is not yet adjusted for the angle of the water.
The line-of-sight is 50 degrees up from the water. Therefore the vertical component of the wingspan has to be increased by 1/sin(50) = 1.3 ... I did the calculation for adjusted wingspan like this:
W' = SQRT((W*sin(55.3))^2+(1.3*W*cos(55.3))^2) = 29.2
Wingspan estimate based on this calculation then is somewhere around 26 - 32 inches. [edited from original post to +/- 10%]
BTW, I found another mistake in my earlier calcs. The 36 degrees that I mentioned before was the vertical FOV for the camera shot. The video by comparison scales to about 30.6 degrees VFOV... Kicks my speed calculations back a bit closer to where I started:
camera height, bird speed
80, 31.6
75 ft, 29.6 mph
70, 27.6
65, 25.7
60, 23.7
I also ran it through from Point-2 to Point-3 (where the reflection is for the wingspan calc). At Point 3 I get a bird height of 9.7 feet above the water, and from Pt 2 to Pt 3 I get:
camera height, bird speed
80, 33.2
75 ft, 31.1 mph
70, 29.0
65, 27.0
60, 24.9
- Dave
I went ahead and took a shot at calculating wingspan from this "nearly directly below" image, which shows the wingspan pretty much fully extended in the reflection.
Using the zero point from before, I measure 40 degree view angle from the tree to this reflection. So from 75 feet up, the reflection would be 63 feet from the tree. Doing the calcs like before, I get 97.8 feet line of sight to the reflection, plus 12.6 from reflection to bird, so 110.4 feet total. The width of the wingspan in this image at 110.4 feet away would be 26.4 inches, but that is not yet adjusted for the angle of the water.
The line-of-sight is 50 degrees up from the water. Therefore the vertical component of the wingspan has to be increased by 1/sin(50) = 1.3 ... I did the calculation for adjusted wingspan like this:
W' = SQRT((W*sin(55.3))^2+(1.3*W*cos(55.3))^2) = 29.2
Wingspan estimate based on this calculation then is somewhere around 26 - 32 inches. [edited from original post to +/- 10%]
BTW, I found another mistake in my earlier calcs. The 36 degrees that I mentioned before was the vertical FOV for the camera shot. The video by comparison scales to about 30.6 degrees VFOV... Kicks my speed calculations back a bit closer to where I started:
camera height, bird speed
80, 31.6
75 ft, 29.6 mph
70, 27.6
65, 25.7
60, 23.7
I also ran it through from Point-2 to Point-3 (where the reflection is for the wingspan calc). At Point 3 I get a bird height of 9.7 feet above the water, and from Pt 2 to Pt 3 I get:
camera height, bird speed
80, 33.2
75 ft, 31.1 mph
70, 29.0
65, 27.0
60, 24.9
- Dave
Last edited:
As one who asked if the wingspan could be calculated, I certainly appreciate your stalwart efforts! I know you always include little caveats, but thank you.
And of course I would like to think that your calculation is correct at the upper range of 30 - 32 inches!
That means I could keep my hopes up.
pcoin
Well-known member
wingspan calculations/where is audio track?
Irrespective of the size of the errors, I don't see what a wingspan measurement proves, given the images, which don't show any plumage specific for an Ivory-billed Woodpecker that I can see. (Where are the white stripes on the back?) I did a little Internet searching and found some wingspan values:
If the error is a bit larger, say 20-30 percent, which my "gut" tells me is reasonable on this sort of thing, then all sorts of birds are consistent with the calculated wingspan. (Maybe even 50 percent is reasonable.) Somebody suggested Belted Kingfisher, and the wingspan is really not that far off from the best estimate above--about 20 percent below the midpoint, and only 10 percent below the lower limit, 26 inches. The bird in the video, to me, has a flight pattern consistent with a Kingfisher (among many other things), which really does have a flight pattern rather like a woodpecker--tucking the wings in close to the body between flaps.
Another question I have is--where's the audio on that video? Were there any Kingfishers/Pileateds/Wood Ducks calling? Kingfishers, Green Herons, Night Herons, and Wood Ducks often call in flight. The lack of audio track is to me, fishy, and not something to crow about! The fact that it was not released is, to me, indicative of incomplete documentation. Extraordinary claims such as those Fishcrow is making should have extraordinarily complete documentation.
(And I would not normally mention this, but we are talking about Fishcrow, and he is always ready to flaunt his academic qualifications as legitimizing his claims, so I will flaunt mine briefly. I am no stranger to advanced mathematics--I have a B.S. in Engineering from a little liberal arts school called Caltech, and a Ph.D. in toxicology. I have actually published a couple of papers in toxicology research employing quantitative image analysis. That doesn't make me infallible, but I am no stranger to numerical analysis of biological data. I've also been birding since about 1966, and documented a few good rarities. I've also made some terrible ID mistakes!)
OK, this is all very interesting, but I just can't believe the process has an error of only 10 percent. Do we really even know the height of the camera to within 10 percent? We hear that it is "75 feet"--that sounds like a round figure to me, but perhaps I missed that. Given the complexity of the measurements and the uncertainties on multiple levels, to really get a good handle on the error, it seems like one should video some birds of known identity under similar conditions and see how that works out.
Irrespective of the size of the errors, I don't see what a wingspan measurement proves, given the images, which don't show any plumage specific for an Ivory-billed Woodpecker that I can see. (Where are the white stripes on the back?) I did a little Internet searching and found some wingspan values:
- Ivory-billed Woodpecker 30-31 inches (here)
- Pileated Woodpecker 29 inches (same source)
- Belted Kingfisher 19-23 inches (here)
- Great Blue Heron 66-79 inches (here)
- Anhinga 43 inches (here)
- Black-crowned Night Heron 45-46 inches (here)
- Wood Duck 26-29 inches (here)
- Green Heron 25-27 inches (here)
If the error is a bit larger, say 20-30 percent, which my "gut" tells me is reasonable on this sort of thing, then all sorts of birds are consistent with the calculated wingspan. (Maybe even 50 percent is reasonable.) Somebody suggested Belted Kingfisher, and the wingspan is really not that far off from the best estimate above--about 20 percent below the midpoint, and only 10 percent below the lower limit, 26 inches. The bird in the video, to me, has a flight pattern consistent with a Kingfisher (among many other things), which really does have a flight pattern rather like a woodpecker--tucking the wings in close to the body between flaps.
Another question I have is--where's the audio on that video? Were there any Kingfishers/Pileateds/Wood Ducks calling? Kingfishers, Green Herons, Night Herons, and Wood Ducks often call in flight. The lack of audio track is to me, fishy, and not something to crow about! The fact that it was not released is, to me, indicative of incomplete documentation. Extraordinary claims such as those Fishcrow is making should have extraordinarily complete documentation.
(And I would not normally mention this, but we are talking about Fishcrow, and he is always ready to flaunt his academic qualifications as legitimizing his claims, so I will flaunt mine briefly. I am no stranger to advanced mathematics--I have a B.S. in Engineering from a little liberal arts school called Caltech, and a Ph.D. in toxicology. I have actually published a couple of papers in toxicology research employing quantitative image analysis. That doesn't make me infallible, but I am no stranger to numerical analysis of biological data. I've also been birding since about 1966, and documented a few good rarities. I've also made some terrible ID mistakes!)
dave_in_michigan
Well-known member
I contacted Mike and he said he thought 75' was about right, based on laser rangefinder measurements he had done previously, but he hasn't measured it yet. He is planning on taking measurements at the site, and I expect I'll get the info. The way I'm doing this approximation, the values all go up or down by a proportionate percentage based on height.
Jane mentioned something like this earlier too. If you want to do it, I think easiest actually would be to simply take one or more wide angle still shots of a couple objects over water (include some evidence of the horizon). I'd need the lens focal length and camera height above the water and I'm good to go (assuming your lens doesn't have too much barrel distortion). You can independantly measure the object's heights and size and distance between them and we'll see how close I get. Speed is just dividing the distance by elapsed time, so we can skip that part I'd say.
The distances don't matter, but the relative angles should be in the same ballpark in order to be a comparable situation.
I don't think a wingspan measurement would prove anything. It might help discount some things, but like you say, you'd need some better idea of accuracy before doing that.
I haven't done any detailed error approximation, because I don't think it's worth the effort without some actual measurements from the site. Even then, I'll be interested in redoing the calc, but I don't know how deep into error quantification I want to get... It's not a simple problem.
If you want to send me some test stills to try, I'd be up to give it a go as a test. It'd be intersesting to see how far off I'd be.
Last edited:
pcoin
Well-known member
right--the point is...
On my other point, you have not responded. Why no audio? That is an important part of the evidence--why not release it? Its absence is very telling, I feel.
And come on, read the guy's web site:
From 2008 Search Season
Why am I not surprised that the figure of 75 feet was not firm. It was probably lower--most people overestimate heights when up in a tree, a building, etc.
My point was that the whole thing is pointless--and you are agreeing with me. IBWO cannot be told from any number of other things by the wingspan.
Identifying an Ivory-billed Woodpecker from a video, if the video is of any decent quality, is a simple problem--the bird's field marks should stand out like a sore thumb. Just like everyone else (Cornell, Auburn, Mary Scott, Kulivan), Fishcrow claims to have seen the bird real well, even multiple times, but just can't get the documentation. Over, and over, and over... This has been going on for 60 years.
I don't have Fishcrow's tree-climbing skills--or a desire to develop them--though I can take decent photographs, and I have even documented some rare birds with them. Just because Fishcrow is brave about scaling trees, however, does not mean he's finding Ivory-billed Woodpeckers.
On my other point, you have not responded. Why no audio? That is an important part of the evidence--why not release it? Its absence is very telling, I feel.
And come on, read the guy's web site:
From 2008 Search Season
2-27-08. I have had more success than I ever dreamed possible, but it's impossible to get my contributions published or their existence even acknowledged due to the corruption of ornithologists.
Honestly, does he sound credible? He makes some of the other IBWO searchers look downright mainstream. He claims sightings in multiple states. All ornithologists are corrupt and incompetent. No birders know anything except Tyler Hicks and Fishcrow (and Bobby Harrison, and Kulivan, and Mary Scott...). They are the salvation of the corrupt and incompetent birding/ornithology community. Sure, whatever!
Last edited:
Similar threads
