Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Chasing the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker
Garden and Gun ^ | June/July 2023 | Lindsey Liles

Posted on 07/22/2023 3:25:11 PM PDT by Theoria

The struggle to prove the majestic bird still exists has obsessed believers and exasperated doubters for a century. Now photographer Bobby Harrison is racing to document the species once and for all before the government declares it extinct

The bird has many names, often divinely inspired: the Lord God Bird, the Lazarus Bird, the Ghost Bird, the Grail Bird. Bobby Harrison is a religious man, but he doesn’t like any of them. He prefers to call it what it is: an ivory-billed woodpecker. “Well,” he says with a shrug, “it is just a bird, after all.”

That might seem like an undersell for someone who on this steaming August day is preparing to shove off into the humid, murky shade of an Arkansas swamp on his two-thousandth-plus search for the ivorybill, whose last-agreed-upon sighting in the United States occurred in 1944. But Harrison’s undersell has the ring of the believer: To him, the ivorybill is, like any other bird, made of hollow bones, feathers, a bill. It doesn’t have celestial powers; it’s not a messenger from on high. Instead, it’s still out in the Southern wilds, doing bird things, flying around as it always has. Harrison will tell you all this because he’s seen one. Other people will tell you, very firmly, that he has not—and the clock is now ticking for him to persuade them otherwise.

(Excerpt) Read more at gardenandgun.com ...


TOPICS: Outdoors; Pets/Animals
KEYWORDS: bird; birding; cryptobiology; godsgravesglyphs; ivorybilled; lordgodbird; woodpecker; woody
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-4041-57 next last
Nice long article on the Lord God Bird, even worthy of printing.
1 posted on 07/22/2023 3:25:11 PM PDT by Theoria
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: Theoria

Bkmk


2 posted on 07/22/2023 3:27:36 PM PDT by sauropod (Sun Tzu: “The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting”)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: sauropod

3 posted on 07/22/2023 3:28:52 PM PDT by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

Is that the species with the funny laugh?


4 posted on 07/22/2023 3:28:52 PM PDT by dsrtsage ( Complexity is just simple lacking imagination)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: Theoria

Bookmark


5 posted on 07/22/2023 3:29:01 PM PDT by Southside_Chicago_Republican (The more I learn about people, the more I like my dog. )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: dsrtsage
#4: "Is that the species with the funny laugh?"

No. You are confusing it the Woody Woodpecker.

6 posted on 07/22/2023 3:31:31 PM PDT by Governor Dinwiddie (LORD, grant thy people grace to withstand the temptations of the world, the flesh, and the devil.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: Theoria

And the DOJ will not do anything about the white-billed peckerwood who moved in the White House a few weeks ago.


7 posted on 07/22/2023 3:36:29 PM PDT by MIchaelTArchangel
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Theoria

And the DOJ will not do anything about the white-billed peckerwood who moved in the White House a few weeks ago.


8 posted on 07/22/2023 3:36:29 PM PDT by MIchaelTArchangel
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Theoria

And the DOJ will not do anything about the white-billed peckerwood who moved in the White House a few weeks ago.


9 posted on 07/22/2023 3:36:29 PM PDT by MIchaelTArchangel
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Theoria
Many years ago I conclusively documented my sighting of the rare Hillary Stinkbird.
The ornithology community laughed at me. No matter! I know what I saw.


10 posted on 07/22/2023 3:37:36 PM PDT by Leaning Right (The steal is real.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Theoria

The last time I saw one, it was sitting on the shoulder of Big Foot.

Seriously, there have been reported sightings of the bird in the swamps of Louisiana and on timber land in Alabama. Most reports of researchers I’ve read seem to look in most easily accessible land while never venturing off the beaten paths.

I suspect, just as many birds and animals thought extinct but of which sightings have eventually been reported, they have been pushed into smaller and smaller habitats where humans seldom venture. And of course they make themselves scarce when the hear the sounds of human activity. They are there, they just don’t want to be seen.


11 posted on 07/22/2023 3:37:55 PM PDT by CFW (old and retired)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Theoria

Screw all the other Woodpeckers!


12 posted on 07/22/2023 3:39:15 PM PDT by Leep (What skill or service did the biden family have that netted them tens of millions of dollars?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: CFW
That's really the problem with bigfoot in the eastern part of the Continent, all of that land has been walked and cut at some point. Better options are the NW and Canada, the south east in general has been replanted and cut for decades. Deer and wood were almost wiped out in NE Georgia and in many other areas.
13 posted on 07/22/2023 3:40:55 PM PDT by Theoria
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]

To: Theoria

It looks similar to the Red-Cockaded Woodpecker,
that is not uncommon but often mistaken for the Ivory-Billed.


14 posted on 07/22/2023 3:41:25 PM PDT by Repeal The 17th (Get out of the matrix and get a real life.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Repeal The 17th

“...looks similar to the Red-Cockaded Woodpecker...”
-
And also the Pileated Woodpecker.


15 posted on 07/22/2023 3:43:50 PM PDT by Repeal The 17th (Get out of the matrix and get a real life.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 14 | View Replies]

To: Repeal The 17th

“...looks similar to the Red-Cockaded Woodpecker...”
-
And also the Pileated Woodpecker.

and also the Blunt-billed woodpecker

and distantly related to the Auger-billed clam sucker


16 posted on 07/22/2023 3:48:55 PM PDT by KingLudd
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies]

To: Leaning Right

What did Rush call her? The Arkansas Broadbeam, I think.


17 posted on 07/22/2023 3:49:28 PM PDT by gundog (It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]

To: Theoria

VP Kamala is miffed. “Why is there no official bird named after me? I think I have a good idea why..”


18 posted on 07/22/2023 3:49:53 PM PDT by lee martell
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Repeal The 17th

The red cockaded is vastly different. Pileated and Ivory is akin to a crow and raven in appearance and difference; they fool lots of people.


19 posted on 07/22/2023 3:51:20 PM PDT by Theoria
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies]

To: Repeal The 17th

Piliated, not cockaded.


20 posted on 07/22/2023 3:56:07 PM PDT by crusty old prospector
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 14 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-4041-57 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson