Dacol, thanks for the link. I couldn't access the page about the IB's, but I enjoyed looking at the Congaree Park Site. I live in Murrell's Inlet, S.C. and I'm really enjoying this discussion. I'm too much of a rookie at this to be up on the precise kind of habitat the IBs favor, but I've done some blackwater (actually, brownwater) diving up there, and it's like the land that time forgot. In the summer, when it's thick, if you get 15 feet off the road, you better know what you're doing.
There's this veneer of civilization spotted here and there along the Congaree and Wateree, as they come together to make the Santee, and that entire corridor offers some great hardwood wilderness. The area has that timeless quality that can be almost forboding. On that dive trip, as the sun started dropping behind the big trees I was still miles from the landing, and I wanted to get back ASAP.
I think Fangsheath makes a good point about the birds not caring about the size of the trees so much, as about what they can get OUT of the trees to eat. And Hugo brought down a LOT of trees across South Carolina. As it made it's way inland, the storm held it's strength with amazing tenacity. Charlotte, for example, had 100 mile-an-hour winds, if I remember right, and I have friends in Sumter, about 20 miles from the Congaree, who lost every large tree in their yard, and they had some big ones.
On the lower Santee, above McClellanville, and going up to and past, Jamestown, there were swaths of pine and bottomland hardwoods that were reduced to stubs. It may have been "too much of a good thing" since the storm destroyed so many trees that considerations of shelter and nesting habitat might have come into play. But, I don't know that.
It's a fascinating area, and I understand why the Cornell Group has it on their list for the coming winter.
As for finding the bird, my 2c, I don't think we can not look for it. Judiciously, of course. Definitive footage and stills of it would make it the poster-bird for conservation and would be such a shot in the arm for all of us who care about the environment. But, first, we have to indisputably find it.
I note that, at least on this part of the thread, there are no comments about the Auburn group in the Choctawhachee. I checked out their site, and some of their audio clips (couldn't get their vids to view) were provocative. Were they not the first to put up the evidence they had? And should they have?
I mean, I understand about the competitive aspect of this; people would have to be saints to not want to be the first to come up the proof of existence for the IB. personnally, I have no problem with sitting back and letting the professionals take a good, long, systematic shot at finding the bird, and proving that they've found it. It would be, as has been said, magical.
There's this veneer of civilization spotted here and there along the Congaree and Wateree, as they come together to make the Santee, and that entire corridor offers some great hardwood wilderness. The area has that timeless quality that can be almost forboding. On that dive trip, as the sun started dropping behind the big trees I was still miles from the landing, and I wanted to get back ASAP.
I think Fangsheath makes a good point about the birds not caring about the size of the trees so much, as about what they can get OUT of the trees to eat. And Hugo brought down a LOT of trees across South Carolina. As it made it's way inland, the storm held it's strength with amazing tenacity. Charlotte, for example, had 100 mile-an-hour winds, if I remember right, and I have friends in Sumter, about 20 miles from the Congaree, who lost every large tree in their yard, and they had some big ones.
On the lower Santee, above McClellanville, and going up to and past, Jamestown, there were swaths of pine and bottomland hardwoods that were reduced to stubs. It may have been "too much of a good thing" since the storm destroyed so many trees that considerations of shelter and nesting habitat might have come into play. But, I don't know that.
It's a fascinating area, and I understand why the Cornell Group has it on their list for the coming winter.
As for finding the bird, my 2c, I don't think we can not look for it. Judiciously, of course. Definitive footage and stills of it would make it the poster-bird for conservation and would be such a shot in the arm for all of us who care about the environment. But, first, we have to indisputably find it.
I note that, at least on this part of the thread, there are no comments about the Auburn group in the Choctawhachee. I checked out their site, and some of their audio clips (couldn't get their vids to view) were provocative. Were they not the first to put up the evidence they had? And should they have?
I mean, I understand about the competitive aspect of this; people would have to be saints to not want to be the first to come up the proof of existence for the IB. personnally, I have no problem with sitting back and letting the professionals take a good, long, systematic shot at finding the bird, and proving that they've found it. It would be, as has been said, magical.
