The Ivory-billed Woodpecker (Campephilus principalis) is the largest woodpecker in North America. It is about the size of an American Crow and is similar in appearance to the relatively common Pileated Woodpecker (Dryocopus pileatus). Click here for a comparison of the two birds (511KB PDF file).
About ibwo.org
ibwo.org is about my involvement with the Ivory-billed Woodpecker rediscovery in Arkansas and my conviction that it is important to conserve the Big Woods of eastern Arkansas and other natural areas of our world.
I began searching in Arkansas in 2003, the year before the initial sighting by Gene Sparling. After Gene's sighting, I spent many hours in the swamp and captured a video of the bird in April 2004. My interest and involvement continues, and this website is my way of sharing it with you.
You can read more about my searching on the Search History page.
Terri Luneau (my wife) wrote Big Woods Bird: An Ivory-bill Story, the first children's book on the subject of searching for Ivory-billed Woodpeckers. We use the book to talk to children about the importance of conservation and to try to inspire them to learn more about birds and the natural world around them.
Hardback and paperback editions available
February 20, 2010
The loudest thing in the swamp - Check out the 2/19/10 27-sec video of a very vocal Canada Goose below. Also, I recorded some large woodpecker foraging sounds (1MB mp3 file, 1 min 15 sec). I glimpsed a bird flying away, but never got a look at it. It didn't show up on the video - the bird was apparently foraging almost at the water level, and I was aiming the camera a little higher trying to find it. Oh well.
The peeper cam - The paper that Brandon Noel and I wrote on the cavity-viewing camera (see below) is due to be published in the second 2010 issue of the Journal of Field Ornithology. I will put a link to it once it is available. You can watch a one-minute video of the camera in action below:
Thanks - Many thanks to the East Cascades Bird Conservancy members in Bend, OR, for coming to hear me talk at Birders Night on November 19, 2009. I hope you all enjoyed it and learned some new things about IBWOs and the search findings.
Entertaining reading - Bill Pulliam's blog describes in a very entertaining, eloquent, and scientific manner his experiences searching for IBWOs in Tennessee.
A Pileated Woodpecker nest exchange - while working with Brandon Noel (see Peeper Cam below), we monitored a Pileated nest to verify that it was still an active nest and to verify that the male's electronic transmitter was still functioning. We could see the female look out of the nest a couple of times before the male arrived, so we knew the nest was still active. We picked up the male's radio signal - which indicated he was getting closer - so the transmitter was still working.
The video was handheld with full zoom, so it is a little shaky. Plus, a mosquito lit on my left ear and started biting me during the video. I'm not so tough, so I swatted him, adding to the video shaking.
Listen closely and see if you can hear the following birds singing in the video: Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, Tufted Titmouse, Carolina Wren, Northern Parula, Northern Cardinal, Carolina Chickadee, White-throated Sparrow, Red-bellied Woodpecker, and Prothonotary Warbler. If you hear others that I missed, let me know. Enjoy the video!
The Peeper Cam - I have been occasionally helping Brandon Noel, who is working on his PhD at Arkansas State University in Jonesboro under Dr. Jim Bednarz. In the picture at the right, you can see Brandon (right) and his brother Duane raising a wireless cavity-peeping camera to a Pileated Woodpecker (PIWO) nest cavity. Brandon is studying PIWOs over a several-year period in eastern Arkansas for his PhD project. The PIWO nesting season is well underway, and Brandon is monitoring several nests and has radio-tagged several birds to study their movements. He has crews in both the White River and Cache River National Wildlife Refuges. They keep an eye out for IBWOs as well.
The nest cavity in the Water Tupelo is 49' high, which makes getting a peeper-cam mounted on a wobbly 50' telescoping pole into a ~3.5" diameter cavity an extreme challenge. To make matters worse, the sun was almost directly above, so seeing the cavity from the ground was very difficult. The camera swayed about on the end of the pole and finally went into the cavity. There were two or three eggs in the cavity (the video taken by the wireless camera is recorded on a camcorder on the ground for later review, at which time Brandon will be able to see in greater detail what was inside the nest).
There were many new migrating birds today. Some notable FOS (first of season) birds for me were Blue-winged Warbler, Black-throated Green Warbler, Green Heron, and Summer Tanager.
Click on the picture for a larger version - look for the wireless camera at the top of the white pole.
Creativity - Someone in northeastern Arkansas spotted an IBWO in a lone snag. (Photo courtesy of T.J. Henwood.)
The tree can be found on Ark. Hwy. 226, just east of Ark. Hwy. 67. You must be driving west to see it according to the photographer.
Reward - A reward for information that leads to a photo or video of an Ivory-billed Woodpecker has been offered. Be sure to read all the fine print - you must provide compelling information and lead a project scientist to a living Ivory-billed Woodpecker.
Click on the image and you can view a larger PDF version of the reward poster for all the details.
We received pictures along with a sighting report on Nov 18, 2008, that turned out to be a picture of a Pileated Woodpecker. But, it's good to know that people are out there looking and understand the need for a picture.
Woodpecker film - Alex Karpovsky's film Woodpecker is making the film festival circuit. I saw it with a group of IBWO folks in October 2008 in Memphis. It is a very funny movie - well worth seeing! It's a blend of reality and fiction, put together with an intriguing story line. Don't look for the true IBWO story here, just some good laughs. It reminded me a bit of Sideways - quirky characters and a funny story. Check out the schedule and read more about the movie at www.woodpeckerfilm.com. There are now DVDs for sale at places like amazon.com.
Irfanview - Yes, it's a strange name, but it's a piece of free software for viewing images, and it works much better than Windows Picture and Fax Viewer, which is what I have used for the past few years. I have updated my Reconyx review tips page to describe how to review images using Irfanview.
Errors in Science - An article in the 17 August 2007 edition of the journal Science titled "Gambling on a Ghost Bird" attempted to summarize the history of the rediscovery in Arkansas as well as the current status of the bird. There were numerous errors of fact made by the author, which I address here. I made no attempt to address the errors made in the form of quotes by Jackson, Prum, Sibley, and others - just the errors made by Erik Stolstad, the author. (I submitted the errors to Science but they opted not to publish them. It troubles me that a journal of such high reputation is not interested in correcting errors in "news" stories. Even newspapers offer corrections when they make mistakes.)
Great quote - This quote summarizes my thoughts regarding conservation and how each of us can help: "In the end we will conserve only what we love. We love only what we understand. We will understand only what we are taught."
Baba Dioum, 1968
Every bird is assigned such a code, and there are easy rules. Read about the naming rules here. For more information contact david AT ibwo.org
All content on this website © David Luneau unless otherwise indicated.