Sound of the Ivory-bill
| Ivory-bill pair from 1935 Arthur Allen film in Louisiana. © Cornell Lab of Ornithology |
The search for the ivory-bill has been both a visual and acoustic endeavor. In 1942 James Tanner wrote: "All the ivory-bills that I have ever seen I located first by hearing them call and then going to them."
Since the beginning of our intensive search efforts in 2004 we have been using autonomous recording units (ARUs) to record possible sounds of ivory-bills. Capturing the sounds, however, is only half of the acoustic monitoring process. The other half is finding the important sounds among thousands of hours of recordings and then interpreting what we've found. Through this process we have learned a lot about sound analysis and the potential sounds of the forest that can trick one into thinking that an ivory-bill is calling or drumming.
On this web site we give you a behind-the-scenes look (listen) at what we are discovering, ranging from ivory-bill sound-alikes to enigmatic sounds that are consistent with known ivory-bill vocalizations and Campephilus double knocks.
- Read about known sounds of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker and hear a sampling of sounds recorded by Arthur Allen and Peter Paul Kellog in 1935.
- Read about the acoustic search for the ivory-bill in Arkansas.
- Learn about species whose vocalizations can sound a lot like ivory-bill kent calls.
- Learn about how other woodpeckers and ducks can make sounds similar to Campephilus woodpecker double knocks.
- Listen to sounds recorded in Arkansas that are enigmatic, but consistent with known ivory-bill sounds.
- Archived sound analysis and discussion
