>From a very well-balanced, not overly conservative birder, based on recent article in Science. See website access to article at bottom of series of messages.

Cheers
Steven Mlodinow
Everett WA

-----Original Message-----
From: Lethaby, Nick To: BIRDWG01 at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU
Sent: Fri, 17 Mar 2006 10:52:04 -0600
Subject: Re: [BIRDWG01] Woodpecker I.D.


Kenn and all:

I'm not sure there is much to discuss. I assumed the sightings were real
when announced simply because they had multiple sightings that appeared
to include people who had been looking for years (and whom I assumed
would have already misidentified one before if so inclined). I never
thought the video proved anything. However, given the inability after
extensive searching to produce any clear photographic or video evidence
of an obvious, conspicuous bird, coupled with clear evidence of
'white-winged' Pileateds, I'm quite sure that no Ivory-billed is, or
was, ever there (at least in recent decades!). I don't any objective
birder can really believe that one was seen at this point.

Nick Lethaby

-----Original Message-----
From: NBHC ID-FRONTIERS Frontiers of Field Identification
[mailto:BIRDWG01 at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU] On Behalf Of Kenn Kaufman
Sent: Friday, March 17, 2006 8:40 AM
To: BIRDWG01 at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU
Subject: [BIRDWG01] Woodpecker I.D.

A current mystery to me is the question of why there has been so little
discussion of Ivory-billed Woodpeckers on I.D. Frontiers. In the nearly
11
months since the announcement of the reported rediscovery of the species
in
Arkansas, it has been mentioned here only briefly, and then mainly as
links
to other sources of information.

I don't mean that we should be discussing the philosophy or mythology
surrounding the bird -- there has been at least enough of that
elsewhere. I
don't necessarily mean general discussion of the behavior of the species

relative to the recent reports, although that does raise some
interesting
questions. For example, the last two known birds in the Singer Tract in

Louisiana were just not that hard to find. When R.T. Peterson went to
the
Singer Tract in 1942, there were no precise stakeouts, so he and his
companions had to search for a day and a half. Once they found the
birds,
though, they were able to follow them for nearly an hour. Compare that
to
the recent episode in Arkansas, with the bird(s) supposedly evading an
army
of searchers for two years, and it just doesn't make sense.

That's probably beyond the confines of what I.D. Frontiers can address.
But
there is one thing we could be sinking our teeth into: the four-second
video
that is the centerpiece of Cornell's "evidence" for the continued
existence
of the woodpecker. This video was shot almost by accident, by a
continuously-running camera mounted in a boat; the searchers in the boat

barely saw the bird, so the identification was based entirely on the
video
itself, not on any kind of sighting. When the paper by Fitzpatrick et
al
was first published in Science, they presented their analysis of the
video,
frame by frame, explaining why they had identified the fuzzy image as
representing an Ivory-bill. I'm sure most of us have read that paper,
examined the frame-by-frame, and looked at the video, but there has been

startlingly little open discussion of whether the identification was
correct.

Now the discussion is out in the open. In Science today there is a
paper by
David Sibley, Louis Bevier, Michael Patten, and Chris Elphick, examining
the
video and showing why the bird is more likely to be a Pileated
Woodpecker.
In the same issue, there is a rebuttal by John Fitzpatrick, Martjan
Lammertink, David Luneau, Tim Gallagher, and Ken Rosenberg, reiterating
their original position. If you haven't read these pieces, you can find

them at

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/311/5767/1555a

and

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/311/5767/1555b

The analysis by Sibley et al is new, but it's based on information and
images that have been available for almost 11 months, and again I find
it
remarkable that this listserve has been so silent about the evidence.
Then
again, there has been a remarkable amount of fervor surrounding the
initial
report, with massive numbers of people believing simply because they
WANTED
TO BELIEVE, and attacking anyone who expressed any skepticism. As long
ago
as last June, when I mentioned in conversations that I thought the video

showed a Pileated Woodpecker, some people reacted violently and accused
me
of being anti-conservation, or worse. With passions running so high,
many
I.D. experts may have decided to lie low and stay out of the
controversy.

So I have to commend David Sibley et al for coming forward with their
analysis. If you know David, you know that not only is he a genius,
he's
also modest and very quiet. He has no reason to seek publicity, nothing
to
gain by sparking controversy -- if anything, the wrath of "the
believers"
could hurt the sales of his books. So it took courage for him to go
public
with his doubts. Here's a challenge to the rest of you I.D. experts,
playing it safe on the sidelines. Read the papers, look at the video,
let
us know if you detect any points that the papers published so far have
missed. I have a lot of respect for all the authors of both papers, but
I
have to say that I still think the video shows the underside of the
wings of
a Pileated Woodpecker flying away above the plane of the camera. If you
can
prove me wrong, I'd love to hear about it.

I.D. Frontiers is sometimes a very active list. We'll go on and on
about
distant shots of worn hybrid gulls, or even about aberrant finches at
somebody's feeder, in cases where we'll never really know and it doesn't

make any difference. Here's a case where I.D. expertise could actually
be
useful, where it could affect what happens with millions of dollars of
conservation funding, where it could have lasting influence on
endangered-species policy. Here is where our ability to split hairs
could
actually be important.

Anyone care to contribute to the discussion?

Kenn Kaufman
Rocky Ridge, Ohio


Join or Leave BIRDWG01:
http://listserv.arizona.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=birdwg01

Archives: http://listserv.arizona.edu/archives/birdwg01.html


Join or Leave BIRDWG01: http://listserv.arizona.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=birdwg01

Archives: http://listserv.arizona.edu/archives/birdwg01.html