Ivory-bill up close

A few months ago as my wife and I were turning into our driveway, she exclaimed, “There’s an ivory-billed woodpecker!”

I looked out the windshield, but didn’t see anything.

“Did you see it?” Priscilla asked.

“No,” I said. “Where was it?”

She pointed as she parked the car. “It flew across the front and landed on the first tree there and then kind of shyly sidestepped around to the other side.”

We have many woodpeckers near the house, but I’ve not seen one. There are two woodpecker trees in the back yard – young trees with a half dozen or more holes each. One fell this spring, but the other is still standing.

Priscilla said, “It was huge! The wingspan was like this.” She held her hands more than two feet apart.”

“I didn’t see it,” I said. “I wish I had.”

Seven years ago somebody reportedly saw an ivory-bill fifty or so miles southeast of where we live. People got all excited.

One of those would be indisputable proof, I reckon.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/A-Close-Encounter-With-the-Rarest-Bird.html

Or this.

http://tywkiwdbi.blogspot.com/2010/09/photos-of-ivory-billed-woodpecker.html

Or:

http://conservationreport.com/2008/12/22/ivory-billed-woodpecker-discovery-highlighted-in-new-documentary-by-producerdirector-scott-crocker/

You get a whole bunch of people wandering around in the woods looking for a particular something, chances are the something’s going to hide. And it knows how to hide a lot better than the searchers know how to find.

A little searching brought a lot of information, including:

“Hill recalled having received a report of an ivory-bill in Geneva County, Alabama, about 10 years ago.”

http://www.birds.cornell.edu/ivory/pastsearches/0607season/0607stories/florida/document_view

(One researcher finds maybe indication, and another researcher suddenly remembers, “Oh, yeah!” Snaps a finger. “I remember somebody telling me about one maybe 10 years ago.” ???)

Here’s what the federal government plans to do when existence is proved:

http://www.fws.gov/ivorybill/pdf/IBWRecoveryPlan2010.pdf

(Two ideas to federal government on “recovery” of ivory bill: Leave them alone; keep well-meaning people away.)