More Imaginary Woodpeckers!
Actually, it's just another report on the same expedition where the searchers swear they saw the Ivory Billed Woodpeckers - honest - but never got a picture. But it finally gave our experts a handle on why they are failing to get that elusive photographic proof.
"The bird just flew over my head; I was in my kayak and it was just above me, going away," said Geoffrey Hill of Auburn University, whose team spied the bird in the flooded forests along the Choctawhatchee River in May 2005.
Hill said he was within 30 feet of the woodpecker at that sighting, but failed to get a photograph, a key piece of evidence to document the bird's comeback.
"It's a hard bird to get a photograph of," Hill said by telephone late on Wednesday. "My excuse, and we are making excuses because we had a chance last year to get a picture, is that we had insufficient personnel and insufficient equipment. We could have gotten lucky. It didn't happen."
….
John Fitzpatrick, director of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, who has led the search for the woodpecker in Arkansas, hailed the Florida find as strong evidence.
"It's tantalizing, it's suggestive, it's not conclusive, but in the aggregate, evidence is strong that the bird is there," Fitzpatrick said in a telephone interview.
He was sympathetic to Hill's problems in getting a photograph, and acknowledged widespread doubts about the bird's existence.
"I've been accused of being a Bigfoot searcher," Fitzpatrick said, referring to the mythical beast of American folklore. "I just believe that it is a very important priority for us to search all of the places where this bird may be hanging on, and once and for all find out where they still exist, if they do."
That gave us the information we needed! We unleashed (literally) the photo experts from Magic 8-Ball Ornithology Consultants and Country Fried Chicken, Inc. armed with the knowledge Fitzpatrick supplied. Because the reason they couldn't get a picture was because they were going about it all wrong! Instead of looking for an Ivory Billed Woodpecker they should have been looking for a Sasquatch!
Damn, we're good. Excuse us, won't you? We have to go put Frank back on his leash.
Other Links to this Post
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Blue Crab Boulevard » Blog Archive » Imaginary Woodpeckers Take On Biggest Challenge — Tuesday, 3 October , 2006 @ 10:51 am
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Blue Crab Boulevard » Blog Archive » Embarrassingly Bigfoot — Saturday, 4 November , 2006 @ 11:43 am
By Bleepless, Thursday, 28 September , 2006 @ 4:06 pm
“Hey, Chirpo! Go put on your fake feathers again. Here come some more bird-watchers.”
By old_dawg, Thursday, 28 September , 2006 @ 8:25 pm
We have plenty of them woodpecker down here. They taste pretty good!
By Gaius, Thursday, 28 September , 2006 @ 8:29 pm
I heard from a friend who heard it from someone’s cousin (twice removed) that ground Ivory Billed Woodpecker bill is one of the 11 secret herbs and spices in KFC. But you didn’t hear that from me.