Close Encounters with an Elusive Bird: What the Search Team Observed

Longtime ivory-bill searcher Bobby Harrison (above) floats through the bayou in his camouflaged canoe, scanning the trees for signs of woodpecker foraging or roost cavities. He was among the first three people who sighted the bird in February 2004.

Photo by Tim Gallagher/CLO

Between February 11, 2004, and February 14, 2005, the search team reported at least 15 sightings of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker. Seven of these included sufficient details to include in the article the researchers submitted to Science (appearing in the online edition, Science Express, April 28, 2005).

February 11, 2004: While kayaking through the Cache River National Wildlife Refuge in Arkansas in the early afternoon, Gene Sparling of Hot Springs, Arkansas, saw a huge and unusually marked woodpecker with a red crest fly toward him and land on a nearby tree. Sparling noticed several field marks suggesting that the bird was an Ivory-billed Woodpecker.

Six days later, Tim Gallagher, editor of Living Bird, and Bobby Harrison, associate professor at Oakwood College in Huntsville, Alabama, interviewed Sparling about his sighting. The two had been following up on possible Ivory-billed Woodpecker sightings across the South. Sparling's description was so convincing that Gallagher and Harrison traveled to Arkansas the following week and joined Sparling on a week-long float trip through the bayou where he had seen the bird.

February 27, 2004: "On the second day of our trip, at approximately 1:15 in the afternoon," Gallagher recalled, "a large black-and-white woodpecker with the characteristic color pattern of an Ivory-billed Woodpecker flew across the bayou at close range in front of Bobby and me. We cried out, 'Ivory-bill!' and paddled frantically toward shore. Although the bird landed on tree trunks briefly a couple of times, we weren't able to catch up with it or shoot a video."

April 5, 2004: Jim Fitzpatrick, brother of Lab of Ornithology director John Fitzpatrick and executive director of the Carpenter St. Croix Valley Nature Center in Minnesota, saw an Ivory-billed Woodpecker flying above the treetops along the edge of a lake near the initial sighting area. With the bird only 100 meters away, he was able to see the broad white trailing edges of the wings characteristic of an ivory-bill.

April 10, 2004: At the same location as the April 5 sighting, Melinda LaBranche of the Lab of Ornithology watched as an ivory-bill flew above the treetops 100 meters away. Through binoculars, she noticed the broad white trailing edges of the wings and a narrow area of red on the bird's crest.

April 11, 2004: Melanie Driscoll of the Lab of Ornithology watched an ivory-bill fly across a gap in the forest about 120 meters away. Through binoculars she saw the broad white trailing edges of the wings, top and bottom, and a white line extending from the wings up the long neck.

June 9, 2004: Bobby Harrison reported seeing an Ivory-billed Woodpecker flush from near the base of a bald-cypress about 15 meters in front of him. As the bird swooped up to land, the broad white trailing edges of the wings were clearly visible.

February 14, 2005: Casey Taylor of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology reported hearing a series of double-knock display drums (the characteristic drumming pattern of most Campephilus woodpeckers) for 30 minutes. A short time later she watched through binoculars as an Ivory-billed Woodpecker flew across an open area as it was being mobbed by American Crows. As the bird flew past about 80 to 120 meters away, she noticed through binoculars the broad white trailing edges to the wings, long neck with white stripe, and black head with long bill.

For permission to reprint all or part of this article, please contact Jennifer Smith, Cornell Lab of Ornithology, 159 Sapsucker Woods Rd., Ithaca, NY, 14850. Phone: (607) 254-2497. email: jls39@cornell.edu