When the bird first appears in the video that was obtained in Arkansas, an object that is mostly white appears to the left of the trunk of a tree. According to the interpretation by Fitzpatrick et al., the white object is the right wing folded against the body. In comments published in the March 17, 2006, issue of Science, Sibley et al. argued that the white object is the underside of the right wing. Although I do not agree with some of the comments by Sibley et al. (including their overall conclusions), I do agree with their interpretation of the white object. The interpretation by Fitzpatrick et al. is presented
here. The key frames are presented in the "Could the white patch be the underwing of a Pileated Woodpecker?" section. These frames are separated by 1/60 second. In frame 33.3, the white object suddenly pops into view. In the next frame, it suddenly comes to a stop. In the next frame, it suddenly disappears from view. These movements and accelerations seem to be too rapid for an object as massive as the body, and they also seem to be unnatural for body motions. On the other hand, such motions are consistent with a wing exploding open as a bird flushes. In the "Pattern at rest" section, the appearance of the white object is explained in terms of a specimen that is mounted on the side of the tree (the feature appearing near the trunk in image C was cut-and-pasted from image B), but the bird in the video is on the back of the tree, where it would be seen from a different angle. Assuming that the white object is indeed the underside of the right wing, the position of the wing and the viewing angle are very similar to one of the frames of the Pearl video. A roll-over comparison of these wings is given below. The shape appears to be very similar. The solid horizontal line was drawn through the apparent tail position in frame 50 and used to position the tail in the image from the Pearl video. The dashed line corresponds to the edge of the tree trunk in the Arkansas video.