Posted on 09/26/2006 5:35:56 AM PDT by blam
Birders excited about woodpecker sightings
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
By BILL FINCH
Environment Editor
Auburn University researchers published evidence today of what some are describing as an ivory-bill woodpecker "Shangri-La" in the Florida Panhandle, a couple of hours east of Mobile.
Researchers said they've had 13 sightings of the ivory bill, long thought to be extinct, and have recorded some 300 distinctive calls and sounds associated with the giant woodpecker, the largest in the United States and a virtual Holy Grail for many birders.
The last clear photographs of the bird -- and uncontested proof of its existence -- date to the mid-1930s in Louisiana.
In a paper to be published today in the online journal Avian Conservation & Ecology, the researchers also will provide evidence of some 20 roost cavities in the Choctawhatchee River basin north of Panama City, Fla., and distinctive foraging techniques they believe to be unique to ivory bills.
The researchers acknowledged that the evidence is not conclusive and did not release any photographs. But even some skeptics of previous ivory-bill claims have described the evidence as exciting and compelling.
(Excerpt) Read more at al.com ...
My Blue Bird houses are wooden non-treated wood. (I use Cypress wood). They need to be mounted on a metal poll with a rat/snake shield around it (the pole) and placed in an area with at least 14 feet of clearance, no limbs, shrubs and etc around it. The hole (door) size is critical and if I remember correctly should be 1 1/2 inch in diameter, it looks too small but isn't.
Now that I am ready to leave my home of the past thirty two years, I have discovered a perfectly safe way to mount bird feeders or bird houses.
Using the standard 1/4 inch diameter steel Shepherds Crook, I bore an 1/4" vertical hole about six inches deep in the top of my fence's 4x4 posts. Since the Shepherds crook is around six feet tall already, it becomes elevated that additional height above the top of the fence. The feeder or house can then be suspended from the crook. To refill a feeder, or clean a house, all you have to do is lift the Shepherd's crook from its snug hole, then replace it the same way. No screws, brackets or other devices are required.
Good idea and plan. It's hard to move from an 'old home place', huh?
Hmmmmm.....thoght this woodpecker was found "hidin' out in Arkansas in 2002 or 3. These guys seem to think so.....
http://sports.espn.go.com/outdoors/general/columns/story?columnist=sutton_keith&page=g_col_sutton_ivory-bill_before-after
I've read that some of the 'bird experts' are less enthusiastic that they've found one.
I won't believe it until I see it. Those scientists need to go back to that swamp, shoot one and bring it's body back for all to see.
"It was Annandale Virginia, just inside the evil beltway of Washington, D.C.
When my wife spotted the male and female in our yard, we had no idea what they were. Before they left, we had identified them in our guide book."
I'm laughing out loud now as I think of what that guide book is today, and what a couple spotted in our back yards might be today. It probably hasn't been written, but If it had It might sound like this.
Was the van windowless, all white and littered with papers all over the dash? Did they have young with them? Were their matresses on the ground, or were they elevated? Was it clear whether they were a breeding pair or just migrating?
Did they seem industrious, or were they robbing the nests of other species who had built before them?
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