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I KNEW I missed pinging someone on this.

Glad you are here, though, and value your opinion on this topic.

I was looking out my window earlier today and saw a beautiful pilliated (sp) woodpecker (huge bird) on a tree. I have a lot of them here, one really large one. I also have some interesting (and probably endangered) salamanders. Not long ago I was hiking in the woods and turned over a log and saw a beautiful salamander. It had a big round head and white spots on it.

Reading this article made me chuckle, as I have read some pretty interesting articles about the Ivory Billed WP sightings and efforts to determine if they are actually in Arkansas. Now that’s one story to watch.

As you can imagine, I've been following the ivory-billed woodpecker story closely too. The "consensus" now is that the original sighting in Arkansas (I believe it was at the White River NWR [or Cache River]) was a mistaken identification. Even the greatest birder in the world (David Sibley) thinks the initial ID was wrong. In the 1980s, there were a few ivory-bills on Cuba, but they too seem to be gone.

As a birder, I would have loved to have seen an ivory-bill. Looks like it ain't gonna happen.

But pileated... that's a good bird too! Enjoy!