The above frame from a video shot in the Pearl River in Louisiana on February 20, 2006, is the first image of a perched Ivory-billed Woodpecker to be obtained in decades (the distance between the arrows is 1.41 meters). While paddling upstream in a kayak at 7:25 that morning, I saw an Ivory-billed Woodpecker perched less than 20 meters away on the side of a broken-off tree on the bank. It was my fifth sighting in five days in that area, where I also heard kents on two occasions (once coming simultaneously from two directions). The bird flew into the woods in the downstream direction, and high-pitched calls immediately started coming from that direction. I had heard the same calls coming from the direction of an Ivory-billed Woodpecker in the same area two days earlier. I turned on the video camera, turned the kayak around, started drifting back downstream, and kept the camera aimed at the source of the calls. After the calls seemed to stop, I backed the kayak into an observation position against the opposite bank. More than ten minutes after the bird flushed, I detected movement at mid-level in a tree deep in the woods (128 meters distant). While unsuccessfully trying to spot the bird in binoculars, I kept the camera aimed in the direction of the movement and captured the video sequences discussed below. This movie (30.6 megs) documents key events of the encounter. Note that the field of view was nearly centered on the location of the bird before I detected the movement and zoomed the camera. Skeptics might consider the probability of an experienced birder thinking he saw an Ivory-billed Woodpecker (for the fifth time in five days), tracking it through more than 200 meters of dense vegetation for more than ten minutes, and then obtaining video footage of a large woodpecker that has several characteristics consistent with an Ivory-billed Woodpecker.

Assessment of an expert. The comments that follow were provided by an artist whose paintings of Ivory-billed Woodpeckers have appeared on the covers of the leading contemporary text on this species and a leading ornithology journal.



The “long but fluffy and squared-off crest.” The image below shows the bird perched on the right side of a branch just after I got the camera on it at about the 10:19 mark in the video. A few seconds later, it rotated behind the branch and hid. Then it climbed a little higher and rotated back into view. The view is at an oblique angle in which the back of the bird is rotated away from the camera as illustrated in the artwork by Michael DiGiorgio. The crest and head shape appear to be consistent with the Ivory-billed Woodpecker specimen.



Dorsal stripe and raised crest. Since the video was obtained early on an overcast morning, it’s difficult to see field marks in raw images of the bird silhouetted against the sky. After adjusting the brightness, a feature consistent with the left dorsal stripe is visible in the top left image (this feature is difficult to see on some computer screens). The similar feature to the left of the dorsal stripe is a broken branch as illustrated in the artwork by Michael DiGiorgio. The faint light streak across the head is a small sprig of vegetation. It’s clear from the image on the lower left (from about one second earlier in the video) that there is no vegetation in the position where the dorsal stripe feature appears when the bird moves into view. The crest appears to be raised in the image in the lower right as illustrated in the artwork.



The “rared-back pose.” The images below compare the postures of an Ivory-billed Woodpecker in a Tanner photo, a Pileated Woodpecker, and the bird in the video at the 10:27 mark in the video. Roll the cursor over the image on the right to compare the bird in the video and the Ivory-billed Woodpecker in the Tanner photo.



The “large, long bill.” The video was obtained while I sat in the kayak at a known position against the opposite bank. Using a laser rangefinder, I determined that the distance from the camera to the point where the bird was perched is 128 meters. From a known distance, I photographed these casts of bills that were made from museum specimens of the two large woodpeckers. Scaling this photo to account for distance and overlaying, I obtained the bill comparison in the photo below.



Unusual movements and wariness. In this movie (full speed), the bird turns its head in my direction two times before rotating its entire body like a door on a hinge and then hitching up and behind the branch with a springing motion. While in the fork, the bird never seemed to engage in any routine activity (such as foraging, drumming, preening, or calling) and appeared to be alarmed and preoccupied with my presence. The photo below shows the view from deep in the woods at the base of the tree in which the bird was perched, looking in the direction where I was sitting in the kayak that morning. By the time the bird appeared in the fork, I had been sitting quietly in the kayak for several minutes at a distance of 128 meters. Under those conditions, the extremely shy behavior of the bird in the video would be inconsistent with a Pileated Woodpecker.



Foot color. In the movie discussed above and in the image below, the left foot appears to be visible as a light-colored spot against the relatively dark tree (this feature is difficult to see on some computer screens). The perched Ivory-billed Woodpecker in this Tanner photo also appears to have a light-colored foot.



The “flapping leap” and the “ponderous and heavy flight.” At the 10:35 mark in the video, the bird takes a flapping leap across the fork. Individual frames of the video appear below. At the 11:30 mark in the video, the bird takes off into a ponderous and heavy flight. A video obtained during an encounter with a pair of Ivory-billed Woodpeckers in the Choctawhatchee River in Florida also shows a takeoff with ponderous and heavy flaps. The flaps in these movies (which play at half speed) are consistent with Tanner’s report of “particularly hard” flaps at takeoff and Bayard Christy’s report of “deep and rapid strokes” at takeoff.


Recording of a possible alarm call. I heard high-pitched calls during two encounters with Ivory-billed Woodpeckers and recorded them during the second encounter. On February 18, I heard kents coming from an Ivory-billed Woodpecker behind a fallen tree on the bank. I quietly paddled up to the edge of the bank, but the bird didn’t detect me and kept calling. Perhaps a minute later, a second Ivory-billed Woodpecker started calling from the opposite bank. Then it apparently noticed me near the first bird and gave several harsh scolding calls. The high-pitched calls then started coming from the direction of the second bird, and the first bird went silent. On February 20, the same calls started coming from the direction of an Ivory-billed Woodpecker right after it flushed. This audio recording is from the first two minutes of the video. The high-pitched calls sound similar to the Blue Jay bell call but don’t match published sonograms of bell calls. In the sonograms of known and putative kent calls, all of the frequencies appear to turn on and off in synch. None of the bell calls published in the Auk by Kramer and Thompson in 1979 have this property, but the high-pitched calls do have this property (even though they sound very different from kents). During both encounters, the calls started at key moments and came from the direction of an Ivory-billed Woodpecker. On February 20, the source of the calls tracked an Ivory-billed Woodpecker as it moved through more than 200 meters of dense habitat. I wouldn’t have obtained any video footage if the calls hadn’t allowed me to keep track of the movements of the bird. Tanner described a high-pitched call that is given when an Ivory-billed Woodpecker is disturbed, which is consistent with the observations. There were sixteen calls during the first two minutes after the camera was turned on. While drifting downstream in the kayak, I kept the camera aimed at the source of the calls. After the calls stopped, I backed the kayak into the opposite bank and kept watch. Minutes later, there were four more calls from deeper in the woods, and then the bird in the video appeared perched in that area.

A brief clip just after the bird flushed. The high-pitched calls were recorded at 1, 6, and 15 seconds into the video. After a gap of 30 seconds, more calls were given at 45, 52, 56, 67, 82, 85, 86, 90, 92, 100, 104, 110, and 120 seconds. The camera apparently picked up a brief clip of the bird at 34 seconds, which is near the middle of the gap between calls (perhaps the bird stopped calling as I drifted near its position). Although none of the individual frames from this clip would have much meaning in isolation, the clip was obtained immediately after a sighting, the camera was aimed at the location where the bird disappeared into the woods, and the clip appears to show a series of markings consistent with Ivory-billed Woodpecker. The clip can be viewed in this movie (half speed) and below as a series of enlarged and cropped frames, which are separated by 1/60 of a second. The vegetation has been stripped away in the sketches below by Michael DiGiorgio, which illustrate my interpretation of frames 01, 08, and 11. Roll the cursor over the sketches to see comparisons with the video frames. In frame 01, it appears that the bird is perched facing away from the camera. The triangular white patch on the folded wings is a key field mark of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker. In frame 08, it appears that the underside of the right wing has a thin black strip up the middle. Although this feature is very different from the underwing pattern illustrated in the National Geographic field guide, it’s similar to the underwing pattern appearing in a Tanner photo. In frame 11, it appears that the white trailing edge of the top of the right wing is visible near where the wing attaches to the body.