Science a GoGo's Home Page Forums General Discussion General Science Discussion Forum woodpecker draws searchers to Arkansas

" It has starred in a video, been widely recorded and graced the cover of a prestigious magazine.

But to dispel any doubt the ivory-billed woodpecker -- the Elvis of the bird world -- is back from extinction, searchers are combing a corner of Arkansas in an intensive six-month hunt."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051211/sc_nm/environment_woodpecker_dc;_ylt=AlX7a31AJ.AtF8d4tLJyfWxxieAA;_ylu=X3oDMTA4NmhocGZ1BHNlYwMxNzAw

Happy (picture) hunting!

About twenty years ago, I saw an ivory bill at the Dairy Queen in Story City, Iowa. Or was that Elvis?

I remember seeing a similar bird in the woods behind our house when we lived College Station TX (My father taught at TAMU) but was unaware of them being rare at the time. That was forty years ago, and I suppose all the woods are gone now. I enjoyed their rat-a-tat-tatting sounds as they got their food. Strange to think they have become so rare.

Are you sure it wasn't a pileated woodpecker?

It might have been. I was just a kid, not really into birds so much. I later discovered I hve vision problems, so I wasn't much impressed with visual things back then. I appreciate astronomy much more now that I wear glasses and can actually see the stars, for instance.

Pileated woodpeckers look an awful like like ivory bills (see: http://bailey.aros.net/nature/images/Pileated%20Woodpecker%20reduced.jpg) and they're not uncommon. If you were a kid, and not really into birds, I would put my money on a pileated.