Ilya Maclean
charlatan
Just finished reading the paper myself. Well written and a very compelling case for the Luneau video being just a normal Piliated. In the interest of true objectivity on the matter, a couple of thoughts / questions:
(1) What effect does the fact the video of the known PIWO could not be de-interlaced have? Could it alter the extent of image bleeding and thus the size / shape of black and white patches?
(2) In Figure 1 and 2, in the last two sets of frames compared, the birds do appear to have different postures, judging by the wing shape. It does lend some support to the possibility that, as argued by Cornell all along we are in fact predominantly viewing the upper-wing of the Luneau bird as it gains height as opposed the underwing, which would be viewable if the bird was viewed from slightly below or as it twists its wings. It is actually quite hard to judge this from the video, but if I had to hazard a guess either way irrespective of species involved and plumage details I’d say the latter, just by looking at the bird in motion. That said I’m less sure about what’s going on in the first few milliseconds as it leaves the tree.
Regardless, I think we can now safely say that the Luneau video does not provide conclusive evidence of IBWO persistance, and if anything, fits the bill for being a normal Piliated.
original Luneau video available here:
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/vol0/issue2005/images/data/1114103/DC1/1114103S1.mov
Edit: Agree, it will be very interesting to see if Cornell argue along these lines or do the honourable thing and back down over the video.
(1) What effect does the fact the video of the known PIWO could not be de-interlaced have? Could it alter the extent of image bleeding and thus the size / shape of black and white patches?
(2) In Figure 1 and 2, in the last two sets of frames compared, the birds do appear to have different postures, judging by the wing shape. It does lend some support to the possibility that, as argued by Cornell all along we are in fact predominantly viewing the upper-wing of the Luneau bird as it gains height as opposed the underwing, which would be viewable if the bird was viewed from slightly below or as it twists its wings. It is actually quite hard to judge this from the video, but if I had to hazard a guess either way irrespective of species involved and plumage details I’d say the latter, just by looking at the bird in motion. That said I’m less sure about what’s going on in the first few milliseconds as it leaves the tree.
Regardless, I think we can now safely say that the Luneau video does not provide conclusive evidence of IBWO persistance, and if anything, fits the bill for being a normal Piliated.
original Luneau video available here:
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/vol0/issue2005/images/data/1114103/DC1/1114103S1.mov
Edit: Agree, it will be very interesting to see if Cornell argue along these lines or do the honourable thing and back down over the video.
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