Abe Borker

If the bird went undetected for over half a century, I think it’s reasonable that seeing one, let alone photographing one is a significant challenge. The habitats left for this bird are vast and remote swamps that few venture into, and even fewer still are trained to identify the species, and even fewer still have the equipment or the skills to document such a sighting. The odds are a bit staggering. None the less, when sightings surfaced in 2004, it was imperative that an effort be made to prove the birds survival. Here we are three years later and still there are many skeptics, most of my friends, colleagues and my parents included.

There are plenty of reasons to still feel strongly that the Ivory Billed Woodpecker survives. There have been a number of sightings by trained scientists with very good observational and field identification skills. Some think that if you want it badly enough you might see anything, but I put trust in these observations. Between sightings in Arkansas and Florida, it’s entirely possible that two populations of Ivory Billed Woodpeckers are still holding on. A photograph and proof is essential if we want to secure a future for this species by setting aside habitat and moving ahead with a recovery plan. Until then critics won’t stop.

Recently, I’ve been reading all I can about the Ivory Bill. Our main source of knowledge on the bird is from the doctoral work of James T. Tanner who spent three season’s studying the three active nest sites in The Singer Tract of Louisiana. Some of his photographs are absolutely priceless, such as the one he took in 1938, the last recognized photograph of an Ivory Billed Woodpecker. In that same year, Chicago Mill and Lumber Company began logging in the tract. Despite Tanner’s suggestions of a management that might preserve habitat and allow the birds to coexist with logging activity, and a buyout offer of $200,000 dollars, the company continued it’s logging operations. In 1939, Tanner estimated that there were 22 Ivory Billed Woodpeckers left in existence and watched the Singer Tract population dwindle to six birds during return trips. In 1944 Don Eckelberry made his sketch and painting of the final confirmed Ivory Bill Woodpecker in the United States. When Tanner studied the birds there were three places in the country that by his account still had the woodpeckers, the Big Cypress of Florida, the Apalachicola River bottom lands and his site in Louisiana. Ivory Billed Woodpeckers in Cuba (although perhaps a different subspecies) were accepted to exist as late as 1948. It’s fairly understood what led to the bird’s decline. Habitat loss was a major factor, and it was compounded by a high demand for Ivory Bill Woodpecker specimens which were collected into the 30’s, after many scientists felt the bird had gone extinct.

The Ivory-bill has frequently been described as a dweller in dark and gloomy swamps, has been associated with muck and murk, has been called a melancholy bird, but it is not that at all-the Ivory-bill is a dweller of the tree tops and sunshine; it lives in the sun, not the shade. - James T. Tanner 1939

I’m particularly fond of John James Audubon’s account of the species. His description of the bird’s favorite haunts might explain why few people venture into areas where they would be likely to get good sightings. It is an interesting contrast to Tanner’s description, which perhaps highlights the difference in personality and Tanner’s love for the birds.

I wish, kind reader, it were in my power to present to your mind’s eye the favourite resort of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker. Would that I could describe the extent of those deep morasses, overshadowed by millions of gigantic dark cypresses, spreading their sturdy moss-covered branches, as if to admonish intruding man to pause and reflect on the many difficulties which he must encounter, should he persist in venturing farther into their almost inaccessible recesses, extending for miles before him, where he should be interrupted by huge projecting branches, here and there the massy trunk of a fallen and decaying tree, and thousands of creeping and twining plants of numberless species! Would that I could represent to you the dangerous nature of the ground, its oozing, spongy, and miry disposition, although covered with a beautiful but treacherous carpeting, composed of the richest mosses, flags, and water-lilies, no sooner receiving the pressure of the foot than it yields and endangers the very life of the adventurer, whilst here and there, as he approaches an opening, that proves merely a lake of black muddy water, his ear is assailed by the dismal croaking of innumerable frogs, the hissing of serpents, or the bellowing of alligators! Would that I could give you an idea of the sultry pestiferous atmosphere that nearly suffocates the intruder during the meridian heat of our dogdays, in those gloomy and horrible swamps! But the attempt to picture these scenes would be vain. Nothing short of ocular demonstration can impress any adequate idea of them. – JJ Audubon, “Birds of America” 1840

It’s almost impossible to find accounts of Ivory Billed Woodpeckers that don’t comment on the bird’s impressive appearance. Alexander Wilson described it as, a “majestic and formidable species” that might “impress upon the mind of the examiner the most reverential ideas of the Creator.” Audubon compared the plumage to a work of famous English portrait painter Anthony Van Dyke.

I have always imagined, that in the plumage of the beautiful Ivory-billed Woodpecker, there is something very closely allied to the style of colouring of the great VANDYKE. The broad extent of its dark glossy body and tail, the large and well-defined white markings of its wings, neck, and bill, relieved by the rich carmine of the pendent crest of the male, and the brilliant yellow of its eye, have never failed to remind me of some of the boldest and noblest productions of that inimitable artist’s pencil.

Teddy Roosevelt encountered three Ivory Bills in 1909 and wrote,

“Their brilliant white bills contrasted finely with the black of their general plumage. They were noisy but wary, and they seemed to me to set off the wildness of the swamp as much as any of the beasts of the chase.”

Don Eckelberry wrote about his last encounter in 1944 with a single female who called, but got no response,

“At 7:20, after I had finished all my notes and we were about to leave, she popped out and raced up the trunk to its broken top where, bathed in rich orange light of the setting sun, she alternately preened and jerked her head about in a peculiar, angular way, quite unlike the motions of any other woodpecker I knew. I was tremendously impressed by the majestic and wild personality of this bird, its vigor, its almost frantic aliveness.” (This bird sketched to the right was the final confirmed sighting before 2004)

When Audubon wrote Birds of America in 1840 he described the bird’s distribution as, “Common in Texas, Louisiana, and along the, Mississippi, to the Ohio.” However, other early ornithologists wouldn’t be so bold to describe Ivory Billed Woodpeckers as common. By the 1880’s the population was in decline, and the rest is history. When I started birdwatching in the 1990s, Ivory Billed Woodpecker was still in a few Eastern field guides. There was a trickle of unconfirmable sightings leading up to the “re-discovery” in Arkansas.

On February 11th, 2004 kayaker Gene Sparling sighted an “unusual woodpecker” in the Cache River National Wildlife Refuge in Arkansas. He then returned with Tim Gallagher from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Bobby Harrison from Oakwood College. On February 27th, with Sparling kayaking ahead, Gallagher and Harrison encountered an Ivory Billed Woodpecker flying at seventy feet away.

And then it happened. Less than one hundred feet away, a large black and white bird that had been flying toward us from a side channel of the bayou to the right came out into the sunshine and flew across the open stretch of water directly in front of us. It started to bank, giving us a superb view of its back and both wings for a moment as it pulled up, as if it were going to land on a tree trunk. “Look at all the white on its wings!” I yelled. Hearing my voice, it veered away from the tree and continued to fly to the left. We both cried out simultaneously, “Ivory-bill!” – Tim Gallagher, excerpted from “The Grail Bird“

There was a flurry of sightings in April (including one by an ESF alumni) and on April 25th, David Luneau captured a possible Ivory Bill on a canoe mounted video camera. The footage became hotly debated as possible proof. I am of the opinion that however promising the video is, it is not the diagnostic evidence that the scientific community would like. It was a cornerstone piece of evidence in the Cornell publication, “Ivory-Billed Woodpecker (Campephilus principalis) Persists in Continental North America” along with personal sightings and some audio recordings. The ensuing frame analysis of the video spread like wildfire. There are experts that disagree with the identification of the bird in the video, and there was a back and forth in Science.

Since then, search teams have continued to document sightings and audio encounters by team members and members of the public. There are a number of audio recordings from automated units that closely resemble the sounds of the Ivory Bill’s calls, kents and double knocks. While many of these sounds can not be explained, there is still the chance that they were not created by woodpeckers. Despite all this effort and supportive information, conclusive proof is still escaping the search. One of the newest pieces of the search effort is using remote cameras. Hopefully, remote cameras can capture an image of an Ivory Bill at a possible foraging site or nest cavity. In past years cameras have taken thousands of images and many fine shots of Pileated Woodpeckers and other bayou birds.

Due to the birds near mythological status, even before the re-discovery, the history of sightings has been very well studied and published upon. Since 2004, the amount of interest in the subject has increased exponentially and there are many great books for those interested in learning more.

Looking through my photos, I do have an image I took a few years ago of a whole big mess of Ivory Billed Woodpeckers. I took this photo a couple years ago in one of my most favorite birding haunts, you’d be amazed the rarities I’ve found in this place, from Carolina Parakeets to Great Auks…

I may as well put a disclaimer in here, that this is merely a post on a personal website mainly intended for friends, family and those who enjoy my photography. This is not a well researched, fact-checked, edited article meant for anything but communicating with personal acquaintances and sharing with them something I find fascinating. It is not my goal to be involved in internet debate over the Ivory Billed Woodpecker’s existence or fan the flames of any point of view. Enjoy!

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• Brian Lawther November 14, 2009

  Thank you for this web page. I am currently writing a report on the IBWO for my biology class and plan to eventually hit the trail in search of this majestic creature. I am convinced they persist.