April Birding + New IBWO Rediscovery Paper

 

Its been a while since my last blog posting. I have been birding alot - I enjoy being outside and getting some exercise - but I have not blogged too much this year. One new thing this year is that I purchased a new camera - and amazingly - I don't think the photos that my new camera produced are as good or better than my previous, 10-year old camera.  My new camera is smaller, lighter, and has a smaller, lighter lens (350mm  vs 400 prime). There is a huge learning curve with this new sony system - so - I'm not as efficient in adjusting the settings like I had been doing with my canon. I might talk further in depth about photography on another posting. 

I've been walking alot at Black Oak Heritage Park in West Windsor.  I've been seeing they typical week by week migrants that generally show up in most decent habitat locals along the great lakes waterways. 

*Eastern Phoebe
*YBSS
*Kinglets
*Winter Wren
*Sparrows (Fox, Towhee, Field, Chipping etc)
*Hermit Thrush

If someone were to go back 11-12 years ago, to my very first posting on this blog, it was my reaction to the Luneau Video about the IBWO sighting in Arkansas. That whole story was so interesting to me. I had faith that yes - IBWO still lives. 

We have not heard much about the IBWO (Ivory Billed Woodpecker) although recently, just 4 days ago actually, the Guardian news website discussed that a new research paper has been released recently - (it is not yet peer-reviewed) - but - I must say that the images provided at the end of that paper look pretty convincing that yes - IBWO still exists in the large forests along the Florida panhandle to Louisiana.  

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/apr/13/ivory-bill-woodpecker-not-extinct-researchers-say

Non-Peer Reviewed Paper: 

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.04.06.487399v1.full.pdf

These are some crude screenshots from the many wonderful exhibits at the end of the paper - but - these seem to be really good trail-cam photos of IBWO - just in the last year or two.  It brings me great joy to think that maybe a few of these beautiful birds still live!!! I would like to go help in the search for this bird in a few years - perhaps in retirement. 

This research will have to be scrutinized by the experts - and I will wait for their assessment - but it seems like a few IBWOs still exist !

Good Birding & Happy Easter
Dwayne