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John N. Felsher's Other Adventures
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On cold, gray day in February 1977, a large black and white
woodpecker flew over my boat and landed in a nearby tree before heading
deeper into this cypress and tupelo gum swamp close to where I grew up in
Slidell, La.
Larger and showing much more white, especially on the trailing edges
of its broad wings, than a more common pileated woodpecker, this bird
looked different. At the time, I didn’t realize how different this red-crested
woodpecker really was. Some people call it the “grail bird,” a reference to
the search for the Holy Grail during the Middle Ages.
One of the largest woodpeckers in the world, the “grail bird,” or ivory-
bill, averages 20 inches tall with a wingspan of 31 to 33 inches. Besides a
white bill, an ivory-billed woodpecker, Campephilus principalis, displays
white stripes running down a black back and white trailing edges on its
wings. A male displays a red crest with a red plume.
Many people who falsely report ivory-billed sightings actually see red-
crested pileated woodpeckers. Smaller than an ivory-bill, a pileated
woodpecker, Dryocopus pileatus, looks predominately black with some
white on its back, wings and under its throat. A common and familiar
inhabitant of many southern bottomland swamps that could also support
populations of ivory-bills, a male pileated woodpecker stands about 15
inches tall.
Once ranging across the bottomlands of the southeastern United
States and some Caribbean islands, ivory-bills became exceedingly rare by
1890. Even in the 1970s, many experts believed that ivory-bills had
already joined dinosaurs in the void of eternity.
Never very common nor adaptive, ivory-bills require very specific
habitat. They need large tracts of old forests where they can tap dead
trees for beetle larvae. Primarily because of logging and agricultural
clearing, this type of habitat virtually disappeared from North America by
the early 20th century.
While hunting along the Mississippi River in northeastern Louisiana,
President Theodore Roosevelt spotted three ivory-bills in 1907. In the
same general area, researchers studied a few ivory-bills inhabiting the
Singer Tract near Tallulah, La., now Tensas National Wildlife Refuge. In
1944, Don Eckelberry sketched the last known ivory-billed woodpecker in
the Singer Tract. Since 1944, people occasionally reported ivory-bills in
Texas, Louisiana, South Carolina and elsewhere, but no one produced
conclusive evidence. Reports persisted in Cuba through 1987.
In April 1999, David Kulivan, then a forestry student at Louisiana State
University, reported seeing not one, but two ivory-bills while turkey hunting
in the 35,000-acre Pearl River Wildlife Management Area along the
Louisiana-Mississippi line near Slidell, La. Kulivan watched two black, white
and red woodpeckers land in a tree about 25 yards away. He provided
enough obscure detail about the appearance and habits of ivory-bill
woodpeckers to make believers out of some ornithologists.
Kulivan described specific details, such as a black crest on the female.
Pileated females show red crests. He also described the calls and actions
of the birds that ornithologists say separate ivory-bills from pileated
woodpeckers. Kulivan said he could not mistake the ivory-colored bills, not
black to bluish like on pileated woodpeckers.
Kulivan’s description convinced at least some ornithologists to
investigate. Teams of researchers entered the wet wilderness several
times without seeing an ivory-billed woodpecker. In late January 2002, the
Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries and other agencies began
an extensive 30-day expedition to search for the elusive woodpeckers.
They found and heard tantalizing evidence that might indicate ivory-bills in
the area, but nothing conclusive.
On Feb. 11, 2004, Gene Sparling of Hot Springs, Ark., said he spotted
a male ivory-billed woodpecker while kayaking in the 62,000-acre Cache
River NWR near Brinkley, Ark. About two weeks later, Sparling returned to
the swamps near Bayou DeView with Tim Gallagher of the Cornell Lab of
Ornithology and Bobby Harrison, an associate professor at Oakwood
College, in Huntsville, Ala. They spotted the bird again.
After giving researchers a year to study the bird in secret, the U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Service announced the rediscovery in April 2005. The
announcement touched off a “bird rush” to the Big Woods of eastern
Arkansas as professional and amateur birders flocked to the area to catch
a glimpse of one of the rarest and most elusive creatures in the world.
Today, research teams continue looking for the “grail bird,” in eastern
Arkansas, said Keith Stephens, assistant chief of communications for the
Arkansas Game and Fish Commission. Nearly every day, researchers
spend long hours in blinds and boats looking for the “grail bird.”
“Arkansas received a lot of worldwide attention and press because of
the bird,” Stephens said. “We’ve heard from people all over the world who
are interested in the bird. The bird has also brought in a lot of money to
the state.”
Led by Cornell University ornithologists, researchers spotted an ivory-
bill about 15 times between February 2004 and February 2006, Stephens
said. They spotted the bird over wide stretches of bottomlands along the
Cache and White rivers in eastern Arkansas. Such a wide distribution
could indicate the presence of a small handful of birds, perhaps six to 12,
he said. To date, though, no one reported seeing more than one bird at a
time. No one reported seeing a female, although researchers couldn’t
positively determine the sex of the bird in some sightings.
Researchers also placed video and still cameras at strategic locations
where they think they might capture an image of an ivory-bill. Researchers
also placed audio recording devices to detect the distinctive “kent” calls
and double tapping of woodpeckers in the area. Some audio recordings
might indicate the presence of at least two ivory-bills, but no one captured a
single image of an ivory-bill yet except for four seconds of blurry video shot
in 2004.
While canoing in the swamp near Bayou DeView, David Luneau, an
associate professor at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, shot four
seconds of grainy video depicting a woodpecker in flight. The video shows
a black and white bird perched on a tupelo tree before flying deeper into
the swamp. Many researchers believe Luneau captured the first
documented evidence confirming the existence of ivory-bills since 1944,
although some people believe the video depicts a pileated woodpecker.
The possible presence of such a rare bird in eastern Arkansas
prompted many federal, state and private conservationists to begin efforts
to preserve as much of the vanishing ivory-bill habitat as they can,
Stephens said. The Big Woods contains about 500,000 acres of vital
swamps and bottomlands along the White and Cache rivers near Brinkley.
Several state wildlife management areas and national wildlife refuges
preserve some tracts of the swamp, but much of it remains in private hands
and subject to development.
“Hunters saved this area,” Stephens said. “Money from hunting
licenses and taxes on sporting equipment goes to buy, conserve and
enhance wildlife habitat, not only for game animals, but for all animals.
Without hunters, this habitat would have disappeared long ago. As a
hunter, I don’t want to see anything go extinct.”
In December 2005, I joined an expedition to find ivory-bills. In
conjunction with the Arkansas Department of Parks and Tourism, we
gathered at Mallard Pointe Lodge near Brinkley near where Sparling first
reported seeing the bird. Better known as a destination for duck hunters,
the lodge surrounded by 3,000 acres of swamp also serves as base camp
for bird watchers.
“Our boundary is less than half a mile from where they rediscovered
the bird,” said Butch Turner, manager of Mallard Pointe Lodge. “An ivory-
bill can range over six to seven miles, so it could easily come to our
property. We treat the bird watchers just like duck hunters. They both
wear camouflage to hide from birds. They sit and wait in blinds. It doesn’t
matter if someone calls it a duck blind or a bird watching blind.”
On the first afternoon, about 30 of us walked in the swamp looking for
the elusive bird. We didn’t spot an ivory-bill, but spotted a pair of pileated
woodpeckers. One landed just above our heads, causing some birders to
take an excited second look.
The next morning, we headed to the Cache River with canoes and
kayaks in tow. Paddling down the river, we spotting ducks, squirrels and
more pileated woodpeckers, but no ivory-bills. Two members of our party
ventured upstream and possibly heard the tapping and “kent” call of an
ivory-bill, but could not confirm it.
While we didn’t see the rare bird, just the fact that such a symbol of
primeval wilderness might survive into the 21st century gives one hope.
People also look for ivory-bills in suitable habitat in Texas, Florida, South
Carolina and Louisiana. If eagles, grizzlies and pelicans can return from the
brink of extinction, perhaps so can ivory-bills, as long as their habitat
remains.
For more information on the search for ivory-billed woodpeckers, see
www.birds.cornell.edu/ivory. For information on Mallard Pointe Lodge, call
(870) 589-2266 or see mallardpointelodge.com.
Reward offered for information on woodpecker
Anyone who locates a live ivory-billed woodpecker in Arkansas and
leads a Nature Conservancy or Arkansas Game and Fish Commission
biologist to it could receive a $10,000 reward.
Mitchell Massey, a real estate developer and Nature Conservancy
supporter from Fayetteville, Ark., offered the cash to find the bird, said
Nature Conservancy sources. The money will be given by the Nature
Conservancy to anyone who could produce confirming evidence of a live
ivory-billed woodpecker so that biologists could continue studying the bird.
A limited number of biologists or other researchers can only cover so much
ground so often. Nature Conservancy officials hope that the thousands of
people who fish, hunt, hike and boat every day in the swamps of eastern
Arkansas would have an incentive to keep watch for the illusive birds.
“The rediscovery of the ivory-billed woodpecker is great news for
Arkansas,” Massey said. "This reward would be an exceptional way to find
an active roosting, nesting or feeding site and involve local citizens at the
same time. Thousands of people fish and hunt in these woods. This is a
way for us to cover a lot of ground in the search for the ivory-bill.”
For more information, call Allan Mueller at (501) 614-5092 or send an
e-mail to amueller@tnc.org. People can also contact the Arkansas Game
and Fish Commission at (501) 223-6359 or send an e-mail to ivorybill@agfc.
state.ar.us. On line, see www.nature.org or www.agfc.state.ar.us.
woodpecker flew over my boat and landed in a nearby tree before heading
deeper into this cypress and tupelo gum swamp close to where I grew up in
Slidell, La.
Larger and showing much more white, especially on the trailing edges
of its broad wings, than a more common pileated woodpecker, this bird
looked different. At the time, I didn’t realize how different this red-crested
woodpecker really was. Some people call it the “grail bird,” a reference to
the search for the Holy Grail during the Middle Ages.
One of the largest woodpeckers in the world, the “grail bird,” or ivory-
bill, averages 20 inches tall with a wingspan of 31 to 33 inches. Besides a
white bill, an ivory-billed woodpecker, Campephilus principalis, displays
white stripes running down a black back and white trailing edges on its
wings. A male displays a red crest with a red plume.
Many people who falsely report ivory-billed sightings actually see red-
crested pileated woodpeckers. Smaller than an ivory-bill, a pileated
woodpecker, Dryocopus pileatus, looks predominately black with some
white on its back, wings and under its throat. A common and familiar
inhabitant of many southern bottomland swamps that could also support
populations of ivory-bills, a male pileated woodpecker stands about 15
inches tall.
Once ranging across the bottomlands of the southeastern United
States and some Caribbean islands, ivory-bills became exceedingly rare by
1890. Even in the 1970s, many experts believed that ivory-bills had
already joined dinosaurs in the void of eternity.
Never very common nor adaptive, ivory-bills require very specific
habitat. They need large tracts of old forests where they can tap dead
trees for beetle larvae. Primarily because of logging and agricultural
clearing, this type of habitat virtually disappeared from North America by
the early 20th century.
While hunting along the Mississippi River in northeastern Louisiana,
President Theodore Roosevelt spotted three ivory-bills in 1907. In the
same general area, researchers studied a few ivory-bills inhabiting the
Singer Tract near Tallulah, La., now Tensas National Wildlife Refuge. In
1944, Don Eckelberry sketched the last known ivory-billed woodpecker in
the Singer Tract. Since 1944, people occasionally reported ivory-bills in
Texas, Louisiana, South Carolina and elsewhere, but no one produced
conclusive evidence. Reports persisted in Cuba through 1987.
In April 1999, David Kulivan, then a forestry student at Louisiana State
University, reported seeing not one, but two ivory-bills while turkey hunting
in the 35,000-acre Pearl River Wildlife Management Area along the
Louisiana-Mississippi line near Slidell, La. Kulivan watched two black, white
and red woodpeckers land in a tree about 25 yards away. He provided
enough obscure detail about the appearance and habits of ivory-bill
woodpeckers to make believers out of some ornithologists.
Kulivan described specific details, such as a black crest on the female.
Pileated females show red crests. He also described the calls and actions
of the birds that ornithologists say separate ivory-bills from pileated
woodpeckers. Kulivan said he could not mistake the ivory-colored bills, not
black to bluish like on pileated woodpeckers.
Kulivan’s description convinced at least some ornithologists to
investigate. Teams of researchers entered the wet wilderness several
times without seeing an ivory-billed woodpecker. In late January 2002, the
Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries and other agencies began
an extensive 30-day expedition to search for the elusive woodpeckers.
They found and heard tantalizing evidence that might indicate ivory-bills in
the area, but nothing conclusive.
On Feb. 11, 2004, Gene Sparling of Hot Springs, Ark., said he spotted
a male ivory-billed woodpecker while kayaking in the 62,000-acre Cache
River NWR near Brinkley, Ark. About two weeks later, Sparling returned to
the swamps near Bayou DeView with Tim Gallagher of the Cornell Lab of
Ornithology and Bobby Harrison, an associate professor at Oakwood
College, in Huntsville, Ala. They spotted the bird again.
After giving researchers a year to study the bird in secret, the U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Service announced the rediscovery in April 2005. The
announcement touched off a “bird rush” to the Big Woods of eastern
Arkansas as professional and amateur birders flocked to the area to catch
a glimpse of one of the rarest and most elusive creatures in the world.
Today, research teams continue looking for the “grail bird,” in eastern
Arkansas, said Keith Stephens, assistant chief of communications for the
Arkansas Game and Fish Commission. Nearly every day, researchers
spend long hours in blinds and boats looking for the “grail bird.”
“Arkansas received a lot of worldwide attention and press because of
the bird,” Stephens said. “We’ve heard from people all over the world who
are interested in the bird. The bird has also brought in a lot of money to
the state.”
Led by Cornell University ornithologists, researchers spotted an ivory-
bill about 15 times between February 2004 and February 2006, Stephens
said. They spotted the bird over wide stretches of bottomlands along the
Cache and White rivers in eastern Arkansas. Such a wide distribution
could indicate the presence of a small handful of birds, perhaps six to 12,
he said. To date, though, no one reported seeing more than one bird at a
time. No one reported seeing a female, although researchers couldn’t
positively determine the sex of the bird in some sightings.
Researchers also placed video and still cameras at strategic locations
where they think they might capture an image of an ivory-bill. Researchers
also placed audio recording devices to detect the distinctive “kent” calls
and double tapping of woodpeckers in the area. Some audio recordings
might indicate the presence of at least two ivory-bills, but no one captured a
single image of an ivory-bill yet except for four seconds of blurry video shot
in 2004.
While canoing in the swamp near Bayou DeView, David Luneau, an
associate professor at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, shot four
seconds of grainy video depicting a woodpecker in flight. The video shows
a black and white bird perched on a tupelo tree before flying deeper into
the swamp. Many researchers believe Luneau captured the first
documented evidence confirming the existence of ivory-bills since 1944,
although some people believe the video depicts a pileated woodpecker.
The possible presence of such a rare bird in eastern Arkansas
prompted many federal, state and private conservationists to begin efforts
to preserve as much of the vanishing ivory-bill habitat as they can,
Stephens said. The Big Woods contains about 500,000 acres of vital
swamps and bottomlands along the White and Cache rivers near Brinkley.
Several state wildlife management areas and national wildlife refuges
preserve some tracts of the swamp, but much of it remains in private hands
and subject to development.
“Hunters saved this area,” Stephens said. “Money from hunting
licenses and taxes on sporting equipment goes to buy, conserve and
enhance wildlife habitat, not only for game animals, but for all animals.
Without hunters, this habitat would have disappeared long ago. As a
hunter, I don’t want to see anything go extinct.”
In December 2005, I joined an expedition to find ivory-bills. In
conjunction with the Arkansas Department of Parks and Tourism, we
gathered at Mallard Pointe Lodge near Brinkley near where Sparling first
reported seeing the bird. Better known as a destination for duck hunters,
the lodge surrounded by 3,000 acres of swamp also serves as base camp
for bird watchers.
“Our boundary is less than half a mile from where they rediscovered
the bird,” said Butch Turner, manager of Mallard Pointe Lodge. “An ivory-
bill can range over six to seven miles, so it could easily come to our
property. We treat the bird watchers just like duck hunters. They both
wear camouflage to hide from birds. They sit and wait in blinds. It doesn’t
matter if someone calls it a duck blind or a bird watching blind.”
On the first afternoon, about 30 of us walked in the swamp looking for
the elusive bird. We didn’t spot an ivory-bill, but spotted a pair of pileated
woodpeckers. One landed just above our heads, causing some birders to
take an excited second look.
The next morning, we headed to the Cache River with canoes and
kayaks in tow. Paddling down the river, we spotting ducks, squirrels and
more pileated woodpeckers, but no ivory-bills. Two members of our party
ventured upstream and possibly heard the tapping and “kent” call of an
ivory-bill, but could not confirm it.
While we didn’t see the rare bird, just the fact that such a symbol of
primeval wilderness might survive into the 21st century gives one hope.
People also look for ivory-bills in suitable habitat in Texas, Florida, South
Carolina and Louisiana. If eagles, grizzlies and pelicans can return from the
brink of extinction, perhaps so can ivory-bills, as long as their habitat
remains.
For more information on the search for ivory-billed woodpeckers, see
www.birds.cornell.edu/ivory. For information on Mallard Pointe Lodge, call
(870) 589-2266 or see mallardpointelodge.com.
Reward offered for information on woodpecker
Anyone who locates a live ivory-billed woodpecker in Arkansas and
leads a Nature Conservancy or Arkansas Game and Fish Commission
biologist to it could receive a $10,000 reward.
Mitchell Massey, a real estate developer and Nature Conservancy
supporter from Fayetteville, Ark., offered the cash to find the bird, said
Nature Conservancy sources. The money will be given by the Nature
Conservancy to anyone who could produce confirming evidence of a live
ivory-billed woodpecker so that biologists could continue studying the bird.
A limited number of biologists or other researchers can only cover so much
ground so often. Nature Conservancy officials hope that the thousands of
people who fish, hunt, hike and boat every day in the swamps of eastern
Arkansas would have an incentive to keep watch for the illusive birds.
“The rediscovery of the ivory-billed woodpecker is great news for
Arkansas,” Massey said. "This reward would be an exceptional way to find
an active roosting, nesting or feeding site and involve local citizens at the
same time. Thousands of people fish and hunt in these woods. This is a
way for us to cover a lot of ground in the search for the ivory-bill.”
For more information, call Allan Mueller at (501) 614-5092 or send an
e-mail to amueller@tnc.org. People can also contact the Arkansas Game
and Fish Commission at (501) 223-6359 or send an e-mail to ivorybill@agfc.
state.ar.us. On line, see www.nature.org or www.agfc.state.ar.us.
Search for rare bird in Arkansas
swamps leads to tantalizing clues
swamps leads to tantalizing clues