This week's internet sensation is a British photo that went 'viral' of a weasel riding on the back of a flying woodpecker. Besides amazing me, it reminded me that we're in the midst of a couple of anniversaries related to another unfortunate woodpecker, the Ivory-billed. And that the implications of it go far beyond the mere interests of competitive bird-watchers (or 'birders.')
The Ivory-billed Woodpecker is a rather legendary bird. The largest woodpecker in the world, it takes up close to two-feet of bark when perched on a tree trunk. Nevertheless, it still looks small in its habitat, the oldest forests of the southern US and Cuba, lands of cypresses and sweet gums big enough to tunnel through. The “Lord God Bird,” as the swamp people call them, is striking to see, glossy black with white patches on the wings and back and tall crests on their heads - bright red for the males, glossy ebony for the females. Their thick beaks, which they pry beetles out of decaying wood with, are contrasting off-white (hence the name.) Unfortunately for them, their magnificent appearance did them no favors.Even before settlers arrived in the New World and shot them for sport and food, native Indians killed them and used their bills as currency. As much as bullets and arrows dug into their numbers, more damaging was the clear-cutting of the southern forest, particularly right after the Civil War. It takes a lot of beetles in a lot of dead or dying trees to feed a family of woodpeckers that large, hence unlike many of their smaller cousins, the Ivory-billed has never been a bird of backyard feeders or little city parks. Trees a hundred feet tall and six feet across are their domain, and also of enormous value needless to say. By the early 20th Century, few areas of old growth forest, and hence few Ivory-bills remained. By the 1930s, the only area where they were known in any number was a spot in northern Louisiana known as the Singer Tract. It was there that most of the existing photos of the bird were taken. Alas, as the name suggests, the forest was owned by a logging company which supplied wood for the then-booming Singer Sewing Machine company; when they found they had a very rare bird living amidst their trees they doubled the speed of cutting the forest lest the government (which was beginning to show some interest in conservation) seize it for parkland. The last known sightings of the showy birds there were around 1944.
Fast-forward to early 2004. Eleven years ago last Thursday, Cornell University biologist Tim Gallagher and a pair of colleagues got their first look at what appeared to be one of the fabled birds while canoeing through a dense swampy area of Arkansas. A few weeks later they got a snippet of videotape of one in flight; ten years ago this April they announced the news to the world. And news it was; the New York Times carried it on their front page and TV's 60 Minutes dispatched Ed Bradley to cover the story and look for the “Grail Bird” ( a nickname given it by birders who considered the search for it to be much like the search for the Holy Grail; it also is the name of the book Gallagher wrote about it.)
I first wrote about Gallagher and the woodpecker in my e-book The Mockingbird Speaks. To me it was the perfect example of thinking for yourself and not believing everything you read or hear. Conventional wisdom said the bird was extinct, however Gallagher chose to believe, or at least be open to, reports he'd heard of the Ivory-billed still living in the White River area of Arkansas.
To an open-minded individual it wasn't that inconceivable. The area was appropriate habitat and moreover, the bird had been reported on and off from wilderness areas of the South ever since the Singer Tract was razed. The bayous of Louisiana and swampy panhandle of Florida in particular had been home to a number of sightings, but official scientists remained skeptical. The observers were usually written off as over-zealous birders wanting to add a 'star” bird to their list or uneducated backwoods hicks. Not surprisingly, many of the people who spotted them were the people who spent the most time in the swamps, bayous and deep woods- hunters, moonshiners, crayfishermen. People who had a relationship with the land but weren't well-received in official circles. In 1971, a couple of photos of an Ivory-billed were shown from a Louisiana land-owner who at the time kept the location secret, not wanting to have hordes of people flooding onto his land. Scientists agreed there was an Ivory-billed Woodpecker in the Instamatic photos, but discarded them suggesting that it might have been a stuffed specimen lifted some 60 feet up into different trees and photographed as a hoax. The bird looked alike in both pictures, they argued. (Later, computer analysis showed the bird was actually in a slightly different pose meaning that their crackpot theory would have required either two dead birds being used or the skin being taken down, re-stuffed and re-photographed .) No one wanted to believe the obvious. There still were a few Ivory-billed Woodpeckers around, in the little remaining patches of wilderness in Dixie. In all likelihood, woodpeckers that were bred from generations of the species which were most wary of humans. Their more gregarious kin were likely killed off over a century prior.
The town of Brinkley, near the section of White River the bird was rediscovered in, enjoyed a brief economic boom as birders and photographers flooded into the floodplain to look for Ivory-billeds. T-shirts and bumper stickers displaying the bird were on every shelf and the state of Arkansas even depicted it on their license plate for awhile. In the subsequent years, none of the rarities have been seen there, skeptics have reared their heads and things are back to normal in that part of the land. A few Ivory-billeds were reported in northern Florida soon after but none have been seen (or reported at least) this decade.
This story spoke to me on several levels. As a birder and nature-lover, it cheered me up to know that at least one species had been spared extinction from our disregard for the environment. For all the dodos, Great Auks or Passenger Pigeons we've eliminated from the face of the planet, there's the occasional Whooping Crane or California Condor hanging on, brought back from the abyss by our efforts. How happy to think the Ivory-billed Woodpecker might be part of that group too.
But there's another reason too. My friend David Marsden, the radio personality I wrote about here earlier this winter used the catchphrase “Stay Curious” to end his shows for years. Presumably he was meaning to be open to new sounds and artists, but the philosophy could translate to so many aspects of life. Tim Gallagher stayed curious and left his New York office to canoe through buggy, snake-laden swamps and found a bird believed to be extinct. I'm glad there are thousands of people that stay curious every day and every now and then find something new and exciting. Cures for diseases, new ways to power our houses, new planets in distant galaxies - all because someone stayed curious.
And for every mystery we puzzle out, there are still many more to solve. Life on other planets? Sasquatches? We're a part of nature just like the woodpecker. It satisfies me somehow to know that it is still bigger than us and still has an element of the unknown to it. For when there is the unknown, there can always be the surprises. There will always be something new.
Long may the woodpecker fly and long may we stay curious!
The Ivory-billed Woodpecker is a rather legendary bird. The largest woodpecker in the world, it takes up close to two-feet of bark when perched on a tree trunk. Nevertheless, it still looks small in its habitat, the oldest forests of the southern US and Cuba, lands of cypresses and sweet gums big enough to tunnel through. The “Lord God Bird,” as the swamp people call them, is striking to see, glossy black with white patches on the wings and back and tall crests on their heads - bright red for the males, glossy ebony for the females. Their thick beaks, which they pry beetles out of decaying wood with, are contrasting off-white (hence the name.) Unfortunately for them, their magnificent appearance did them no favors.Even before settlers arrived in the New World and shot them for sport and food, native Indians killed them and used their bills as currency. As much as bullets and arrows dug into their numbers, more damaging was the clear-cutting of the southern forest, particularly right after the Civil War. It takes a lot of beetles in a lot of dead or dying trees to feed a family of woodpeckers that large, hence unlike many of their smaller cousins, the Ivory-billed has never been a bird of backyard feeders or little city parks. Trees a hundred feet tall and six feet across are their domain, and also of enormous value needless to say. By the early 20th Century, few areas of old growth forest, and hence few Ivory-bills remained. By the 1930s, the only area where they were known in any number was a spot in northern Louisiana known as the Singer Tract. It was there that most of the existing photos of the bird were taken. Alas, as the name suggests, the forest was owned by a logging company which supplied wood for the then-booming Singer Sewing Machine company; when they found they had a very rare bird living amidst their trees they doubled the speed of cutting the forest lest the government (which was beginning to show some interest in conservation) seize it for parkland. The last known sightings of the showy birds there were around 1944.
Fast-forward to early 2004. Eleven years ago last Thursday, Cornell University biologist Tim Gallagher and a pair of colleagues got their first look at what appeared to be one of the fabled birds while canoeing through a dense swampy area of Arkansas. A few weeks later they got a snippet of videotape of one in flight; ten years ago this April they announced the news to the world. And news it was; the New York Times carried it on their front page and TV's 60 Minutes dispatched Ed Bradley to cover the story and look for the “Grail Bird” ( a nickname given it by birders who considered the search for it to be much like the search for the Holy Grail; it also is the name of the book Gallagher wrote about it.)
I first wrote about Gallagher and the woodpecker in my e-book The Mockingbird Speaks. To me it was the perfect example of thinking for yourself and not believing everything you read or hear. Conventional wisdom said the bird was extinct, however Gallagher chose to believe, or at least be open to, reports he'd heard of the Ivory-billed still living in the White River area of Arkansas.
To an open-minded individual it wasn't that inconceivable. The area was appropriate habitat and moreover, the bird had been reported on and off from wilderness areas of the South ever since the Singer Tract was razed. The bayous of Louisiana and swampy panhandle of Florida in particular had been home to a number of sightings, but official scientists remained skeptical. The observers were usually written off as over-zealous birders wanting to add a 'star” bird to their list or uneducated backwoods hicks. Not surprisingly, many of the people who spotted them were the people who spent the most time in the swamps, bayous and deep woods- hunters, moonshiners, crayfishermen. People who had a relationship with the land but weren't well-received in official circles. In 1971, a couple of photos of an Ivory-billed were shown from a Louisiana land-owner who at the time kept the location secret, not wanting to have hordes of people flooding onto his land. Scientists agreed there was an Ivory-billed Woodpecker in the Instamatic photos, but discarded them suggesting that it might have been a stuffed specimen lifted some 60 feet up into different trees and photographed as a hoax. The bird looked alike in both pictures, they argued. (Later, computer analysis showed the bird was actually in a slightly different pose meaning that their crackpot theory would have required either two dead birds being used or the skin being taken down, re-stuffed and re-photographed .) No one wanted to believe the obvious. There still were a few Ivory-billed Woodpeckers around, in the little remaining patches of wilderness in Dixie. In all likelihood, woodpeckers that were bred from generations of the species which were most wary of humans. Their more gregarious kin were likely killed off over a century prior.
The town of Brinkley, near the section of White River the bird was rediscovered in, enjoyed a brief economic boom as birders and photographers flooded into the floodplain to look for Ivory-billeds. T-shirts and bumper stickers displaying the bird were on every shelf and the state of Arkansas even depicted it on their license plate for awhile. In the subsequent years, none of the rarities have been seen there, skeptics have reared their heads and things are back to normal in that part of the land. A few Ivory-billeds were reported in northern Florida soon after but none have been seen (or reported at least) this decade.
This story spoke to me on several levels. As a birder and nature-lover, it cheered me up to know that at least one species had been spared extinction from our disregard for the environment. For all the dodos, Great Auks or Passenger Pigeons we've eliminated from the face of the planet, there's the occasional Whooping Crane or California Condor hanging on, brought back from the abyss by our efforts. How happy to think the Ivory-billed Woodpecker might be part of that group too.
But there's another reason too. My friend David Marsden, the radio personality I wrote about here earlier this winter used the catchphrase “Stay Curious” to end his shows for years. Presumably he was meaning to be open to new sounds and artists, but the philosophy could translate to so many aspects of life. Tim Gallagher stayed curious and left his New York office to canoe through buggy, snake-laden swamps and found a bird believed to be extinct. I'm glad there are thousands of people that stay curious every day and every now and then find something new and exciting. Cures for diseases, new ways to power our houses, new planets in distant galaxies - all because someone stayed curious.
And for every mystery we puzzle out, there are still many more to solve. Life on other planets? Sasquatches? We're a part of nature just like the woodpecker. It satisfies me somehow to know that it is still bigger than us and still has an element of the unknown to it. For when there is the unknown, there can always be the surprises. There will always be something new.
Long may the woodpecker fly and long may we stay curious!