Feathered Ghosts: May 2007

The best way to see an Ivory-billed Woodpecker these days?

Here?

These cute toys make great gifts for bird lovers and for practical jokers like me.

Not over yet!

Some of the best detections over the past couple of years occurred in May. We still have some crew members posted to some of the hot spots in the river system, so hopefully we'll come up with something over the next week. I'm more hopeful than optimistic, but still have no difficulty finding motivation to get up and out into that beautiful river valley.

I will be posting at a later date on some possible hypotheses as to why we weren't able to come up with definitive proof of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker's existence here.

Season wrapping up

I'll be leaving in 10 days. Most of my colleagues have already left, and all but two will be gone by the time I fly out of Pensacola on May 30th. I'll still be posting to the blog, though, so please continue to visit. If anybody has any questions about the results of our search, I advise they visit the Auburn University site I link to on the home page of this blog.

Here's a photo of our remaining crew of 10, the toughest holdovers from a high of close to the 30 at the apex of our search:

{Photo by Wally Rendell - click to enlarge}

Front (l. to r.) Brian Rolek, Mark VanderVen, Lizzie Goodrick, Wally Rendell, Karan Odom

Back (l. to r.) John Diener, Justyn Stahl, Lawson Yow, Jean Olbert, Grover P. Gordish (missing : John McNeely)

Birds of the Choctawhatchee

If I weren't for a certain phantom bird, we wouldn't be here. Though he/she has proven to be a bit evasive, I probably ought share some of the other less cagey feathered critters we've been seeing.