Posted by Susan Epps on January 01, 1970 at 00:00:00
Grover, I saw an Ivory-billed Woodpecker near St. Martinville, Louisiana in 1958. I was 10. My father had been friends with George Lowery and bought "Louisiana Birds" the day it came out in 1955. My father was very interested in the ivory-billed because he had grown up in north Louisiana and had a few sightings when young. He got me interested, so I had studied the pictures. But he didn't believe me when I saw the bird. In 2006, after hurricane Katrina had stripped the trees of leaves, I had 3 sightings of the bird. One in Mississippi and two in Honey Island Swamp in Louisiana. The problem is people say, if the bird exists why hasn't anyone seen it, then when someone reports seeing the bird, people say, no you didn't. Tanner was wrong. He said the bird isn't skittish. That is because he was led to an active nest. The birds weren't going to leave. He set up a blind there. He never found an ivory-billed on his own. Another error he made wss to say they needed old growth forest. Not true. Historical records show nest holes in trees with only a 15 inch diameter. Is the Ivory-billed Woodpecker wary of people, yes. Do birders make a lot of noise in the woods, yes. Even when not speaking, just walking provides enough noise to scare birds and critters away. Example, there are bears in the woods here, but I've never seen one. Does that mean they are extinct or extrapated?