The Ivory-Billed
Woodpecker
Long thought to be extinct,
the ivory-billed
woodpecker—our nation’s
largest and most
impressive woodpecker—
has made what seems to
be a stunning
reappearance in the
Southeast. This is the
story of the bird, its
disappearance and
rediscovery.
Valued by Native Americans
for its unique white bill, the
ivory-bill was first documented by Europeans during the
colonial period by naturalist
Mark Catesby. Visiting the
Carolinas in the 1720s,
Catesby published a
description and illustration of
an ivory-bill in his 1731 work
Natural History of Carolina,
Florida and the Bahama
Islands.
Throughout the colonial and antebellum periods, the ivory-bill
persisted in the secluded river bottomlands and swamps of
the South. They seemed most plentiful in South Carolina,
Florida, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Texas, though
documentation during that time is somewhat limited.
During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries,
large-scale logging operations moved into the South and
devastated old-growth hardwood forests throughout the
region. With this loss of habitat, the ivory-bill began a
rapid decline toward extinction.
Found only in dead (but
not completely rotten)
trees, the cerambycid
beetle larva is the
primary food of the
ivory-bill. With loss of
habitat came loss of
food source and an
inevitable slide toward
extinction.
Ivory-Billed Woodpecker Stats
Height:
Wingspan:
Life Expectancy:
Markings:
18”-21”
30”-32”
up to 15 years
black plumage
w/white highlights
on wings & back,
whitish bill/beak,
male - red crest,
female - black crest
Pileated Woodpecker Stats
Height:
Wingspan:
Life Expectancy:
Markings:
16”-19”
26”-30”
up to 10 years
black plumage
w/white highlights
on head & wings,
gray bill/beak,
male & female have
red crest
As suitable habitat dwindled, the search for ivory-bill
specimens soared. Ornithologists, birders, collectors,
and curators all sought to “get while the gettin’ was
good.” Complete birds, as well as parts, were bought
by museums, fashion designers, and the curious.
During that time, serious scientific study rarely used
live specimens.
In 1935, a team led by Cornell’s Arthur A. Allen
visited the Singer Tract in Louisiana to document
one of the nation’s last known populations of
ivory-bills. They captured the sights and sounds
of an up-close encounter with a nesting pair and
their offspring. Sonny, as they referred to the
young bird, was more than eager to cooperate.
The last confirmed
sighting of an ivory-bill in
the United States was in
the Singer Tract in 1944.
Subsequent searches
turned up nesting and
feeding evidence as well
as sporadic sightings
which were largely
discredited for one reason
or another. Ivory-bills
persisted in eastern Cuba
until the last confirmed
sighting in 1987. Since
then, evidence for their
existence is inconclusive.
In 1999, David Kulivan, a graduate student in
forestry at LSU, reported seeing a pair of ivory-bills
while turkey hunting in the Pearl River area of
southeastern Louisiana. The credibility of this
sighting led to a renewed search for the ivory-bill.
A 2004 sighting by Gene Sparling in the Big
River area of Arkansas led to a secret year-long
expedition by Cornell’s Lab of Ornithology, the
Nature Conservancy, and other birding experts
and sound and video technicians.
The search resulted in several sightings, but no
conclusive evidence to confirm them. After
Cornell broke the news in 2005, the birding
world was divided. While all wanted the bird to
be alive, many questioned the validity of the
evidence and the scientific judgment of those
involved. After the 2008-2009 search, Cornell
suspended its effort in Arkansas.
In September 2006, a joint team from Auburn University
and the University of Windsor, Ontario announced the
presence of ivory-bills in the Choctawhatchee River area
of the Florida panhandle. They made hundreds of audio
recordings of the bird’s unique kent calls and doubleknocks, as well as field sketches documenting their
fourteen visual sightings.
Recent searches have turned up inconclusive evidence:
provocative video footage and promising audio recordings,
but no definitive proof of the bird’s existence. Future
searches will be undertaken on a very limited scale.
Singer Tract, Louisiana, 1935
Ivory-billed
Pileated
Male
Female
Comparative specimens of the Imperial,
Ivory-billed, and Pileated woodpeckers
Identification Chart
Sources
The Grail Bird: Hot on the Trail of the Ivory-billed
Woodpecker. Tim Gallagher, Houghton Mifflin, New
York, 2005.
In Search of the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker. Jerome A.
Jackson, Smithsonian Books, Washington, D.C., 2004.
The Ivory-Billed Woodpecker. James T. Tanner, Dover
Publications, 2003 (Originally published 1942 by
National Audubon Society).
The Race to Save the Lord God Bird. Philip Hoose, Farrar,
Straus and Giroux, New York, 2004.
http://www.npr.org/programs/re/archivesdate/2002/march/
http://www.ivorybill.org/
http://www.birds.cornell.edu/ivory
http://www.auburn.edu/academic/science_math/cosam/dep
artments/biology/faculty/webpages/hill/ivorybill/
http://www.bobbyharrison.com/
http://www.nature.org/pressroom/features/
See you in the swamp!
Pollman’s Ivory-bills