Exchanges with Chuck Hunter in a private Facebook group and in conversation inspired this addendum. If you haven’t read the original post, 2023 in Retrospect (Part 4): Acoustic Data in a Visual World, I encourage you to check it out first. Chuck’s comments led me to reconsider Tanner’s response to the Dennis recording, which resembles…
Introduction While I didn’t fully apprehend it at the time, the events that took place over several days in mid-March 2017 were singular. Crucially, the set of recordings made by Matt Courtman (formerly affiliated with Project Coyote) and Phil Vanbergen is unique in the history of ivorybill searches. Project Principalis’s paper included a discussion of…
It’s difficult to write about such an eventful year, so it seems best to tackle it in a series of posts. The publication of our paper was, of course, a major milestone, as was the Fish and Wildlife Service’s non-decision decision on delisting. The latter had deep personal significance, not least because my 2018 submission…
Two years ago this morning, I saw an Ivory-billed Woodpecker. It’s my only certain sighting in over 15 years of searching. For new readers, I’ve had two others of which I am slightly less certain and another handful about which I’m a lot more skeptical. To honor the occasion, I’m going to repost my voice…
Our peer-reviewed paper is available here. Update: The production error has apparently been corrected as of 1 pm on May 19. If you’ve read the paper already, be sure to clear your history to see the corrected version. First, a shoutout to my co-authors: Tommy Michot, Peggy Shrum, Patricia Johnson, Jay Tischendorf, Mike Weeks, John…
That’s me on October 27, 2021 at a little before 8 AM. I had just seen an Ivory-billed Woodpecker. The essence of this post and other sightings from the area, dating back to 2015, are posted on the National Aviary’s Notes From the Field page. Be sure to check it out. Though I saw no…
Summary Evidence collected by Project Coyote in two parts of Louisiana from 2009-2018 should, on its own, suffice to justify maintaining the Ivory-billed Woodpecker’s current listing as an extant, endangered species in the United States. Others may differ, but I think the totality of the evidence does even more, making a compelling case that the…
Back in the early 2000’s, I often used the holiday break as a time to take off from work and go birding someplace I’d never been before. Following the Ivorybill rediscovery announcement in May 2005, I decided to go to Arkansas “on a lark” and at least see the habitat where the bird had been…
On October 22nd, I received an email reporting a recent ivorybill sighting in eastern Louisiana. I found the report convincing for its high level of detail and decided to devote my next trip to following up on it. The source was Joseph Tyler Saucier, a pastor, avid hunter, and Louisiana native whom I’ve known virtually…
The first trip of the season was relatively uneventful, although we heard possible single and double knocks on Thursday morning and afternoon. Unusually heavy hunting activity and bad weather kept us out of the field on Saturday the 22nd and most of the Sunday the 23rd. Peggy Rardin Shrum joined me from Tuesday through Friday….