In search of the elusive ivory-billed woodpecker

Alabamians figure prominently in trying to prove the existence of the ivory-billed woodpecker, thought to be extinct since at least the 1950s or earlier but now the subject of numerous reports of sightings in remote swamps.

Since 2004, reports of the ivory-billed woodpecker have come from Florida Panhandle swamps that begin in Alabama and from Louisiana, Arkansas and other areas that look like movie sites for the "Creature From the Black Lagoon." Auburn University biology professor Geoff Hill, an ornithologist, said he and his search team have seen the giant and boldly plumed black-and-white ivory-bill.

The ivory-billed woodpecker's loud tree knocks and even faint vocalizations, called kents, have been recorded. But searchers need photographic or DNA proof before sightings can be proven.

Hill is one of several Alabamians who figures in the search effort for the ivory-billed woodpecker, a bird nearly 2 feet long and with a wingspan of nearly 3 feet.

"We have over two dozen sightings, and 400 soundings, scaled bark - everything short of getting a picture of this bird," Hill said.

Hill said he has four seconds of a sighting. "I personally have seen this bird," he said.

Photographer and Oakwood College professor Bobby Harrison, of Gurley, and University of Alabama geography professor Michael Steinberg are experts on the ivory-billed bird.

Harrison was part of an original group who reported ivory-billed sightings in Arkansas about four years ago. Officials at Cornell University then became interested.

"I've had what I think are close encounters, but the birds are too far away to see detail," Harrison said. "I can't really say I've seen anything, but I believe they're ivory-bills."

There's a cousin to the ivory-bill, the pileated woodpecker, which is slightly smaller and somewhat similar in color. Experts who see pileateds all the time say there's no comparison to an ivory-bill.

"The reason I think I've seen (ivory-bills) is because I know enough to know the difference," Harrison said.

Steinberg volunteered to search for ivory-billed woodpeckers in swamps in South Carolina. He doesn't claim to have positively seen one, but he believes he's heard its cry.

"I don't say that lightly, because I just wrote a book, and I don't want it to sound like I'm marketing my book," said Steinberg.

His book, "Stalking the Ghost Bird: The Elusive Ivory-Billed Woodpecker," published by LSU Press, grew out of his lifelong interest in the bird he believes he might have seen as a boy, an interest rekindled by reports of recent sightings that are politicized and criticized as nothing more than a waste of money that could be used for "legitimate research and conservation projects."

Worldtwitch blogger John Wall criticized the messenger. Worldtwitch is an Internet site that provides worldwide information about rare birds. It began as an occasional column in Winging It and Birding World magazines and moved to the Web in 1998. Wall oversees the sight.

"Not only do they lack the prestige of the big time hoaxsters, but they don't even have a fake photo, the former prerequisite for a serious ivory-bill hoax," Wall writes of Hill. "It will interesting to see whether the Bush Administration redirects (ivory-bill) grant money from Cornell (University) to Auburn, an academically suspect, football and fraternity college located in the solidly Republican, Bible Belt state of Alabama."

Hill and his small search team are in their fourth year of seeking proof of ivory-bills in the Choctawhatchee River swamp of the Florida Panhandle. The Choctawhatchee (the "w" isn't pronounced) is the name of Alabama's Pea River when it flows from Geneva County into Florida, feeding a wide expanse of swampy hardwood forest.

Hill wrote a book about three years of searching, "Ivory-bill Hunters, The Search for Proof in a Flooded Wilderness." It's published by Oxford University Press.

Hill said he's being provided cameras that activate by sound when an ivory-bill slams its chisel-shaped beak into the bark of a tree, stripping it away to get at beetles and larvae.

"I'm pretty sure (the cameras) will activate when the woodpecker is foraging," Hill said. "We are going to focus on feeding trees, those recently dead trees with tight bark knocked off where there's beetle activity. The problem is to guess which (trees) they'll be using."

Mark Sasser is the state department's non-game wildlife coordinator. He said Hill is a recognized and authoritative birder, and if Hill says he's seen an ivory-billed woodpecker, Sasser believes him.

Sasser said the state doesn't have plans to look at swampy areas of south Alabama for the bird and its possible recovery until there's proof it exists. Hill believes he can get it.

"We said we've got substantial evidence," Hill said. "I know it's there, and I accept the fact that I can't prove that to my fellow ornithologists."

Dana Beyerle can be reached at (334) 264-6605 or dtb12345@aol.com.