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The ivory-billed woodpecker was thought to have been extinct for 50 years
(Image: John A Ruthven)

  • Cache River National Wildlife Refuge


    • May 14, 2005, 11:35PM

    Chance encounter on kayak trip reveals bird to the world

    Amateur birder posted the sighting online, leading scientists to flock to the Big Woods

    By KIM COBB
    Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle

    DAGMAR WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT AREA, ARK. - Gene Sparling came
    very close to dismissing a miracle.

    "I almost let this slip away because I was too cynical to believe," Sparling said, peering into the feathery cypress and tupelo trees of Arkansas' Big Woods.

    He stumbled across the ivory-billed woodpecker on a recreational kayaking trip after teams of scientists had searched for it for years.

    "Wonderful things can happen," Sparling said, shaking his head. "I'm in a position to tell you it's true."

    Sparling, 49, runs a riding stable in Hot Springs. At least he used to, before the woodpecker took over his life.

    He was a budding birder as a teenager until he traded that passion for girls and cars. Nevertheless, he knew the story of the ivory bill � the great lost species of the southern bottomland forests.

    Sparling has always been an outdoorsman. He says he was going through his "kayaking phase" when he was paddling through the swamps near here in February 2004.

    "I came around a particular corner, and a large woodpecker flew down into a straight section of channel heading straight for me," Sparling recalled. "My thought was, 'That's the biggest pileated (a smaller, similarly marked woodpecker) I've seen.' "

    The bird slowed, became aware of Sparling's presence and dodged over as he sat in his kayak.

    "He had a long neck, a red crest that came to a very sharp point, and the main item I focused on was that the white feathers on the lower portion of the wing had an odd, yellow parchment-colored tinge on the edges."

    Sparling thought it was an ivory bill. But no, he told himself, ivory-billed woodpeckers are extinct, so it must be a pileated woodpecker.

    "But it was not a pileated," Sparling concluded, his brain looping back to what he knew about the ivory bill.

    "Wait, ivory bills are extinct. And I went around, and around and around," he said.

    Sparling made a habit of filing notes about his wilderness journeys to a state canoeing Web site. After returning home, he wrote about what he had seen in very guarded terms.

    "I said I saw a large woodpecker, and the pattern of white and black seemed to be reversed," Sparling recalled. "You birders will know what is implied, but I don't have the conviction to put it into words."

    A woman responded to his e-mail, providing Sparling with a piece of the puzzle he didn't have: The Big Woods of Arkansas was once part of the historical range of the ivory-billed woodpecker.

    Word of Sparling's post reached ornithologists Tim Gallagher, of Cornell University, and Bobby Harrison, of Alabama's Oakwood College, in a matter of days. He agreed to take the scientists to where he had seen the bird, and by the end of February the three were traveling down the same stretch of water in two small boats.

    "I paddled on ahead to ensure quiet, and just as I did, the bird flew right in front of them," Sparling said.

    "At that point, I thought my work was done. The experts would come in, save the bird and save the habitat. I hoped they would let me carry their suitcases and watch from the sidelines."

    But the "experts" formed the Big Woods Conservation Project and put Sparling to work helping with the Nature Conservancy's land acquisition in the area, and the continued search for the bird and its roosting holes. To date, the project has made seven confirmed sightings and recorded a brief videotape of a male bird.

    "And it's been one of the most gratifying experiences in my life," Sparling said.

    kim.cobb@chron.com

    HoustonChronicle.com -- http://www.HoustonChronicle.com | Section: National
    This article is: http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/nation/3182569

  • Chance encounter on kayak trip reveals bird to the world

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