IBW News Page 4

  • Cache River National Wildlife Refuge


    • It just doesn't pay to be pileated

    By DAVE SKOLODA

    A crow-sized woodpecker with a red crest flashed past the window as I looked out this morning. If I were depending only on what I have seen lately in the media to identify it, I would say that it was the ivory-billed woodpecker, the bird everyone's talking about - the Lord God Bird thought to be extinct, but seen recently for the first time in some 60 years.

    But I know that it wasn't the ivory-billed woodpecker. Instead, I saw our own version of the Lord God Bird, the pileated woodpecker. There is much the same about these two great birds - the pileated at 16 to 19 1/2 inches is only slightly smaller than the ivory-billed.

    The male and female pileateds both have red crests while the male ivory-billed sports a stiff red crest with a black forehead that extends into the red crest. The female ivory-billed has an all-black crest. The male pileated also sports a red mustache.

    What is different about the two birds besides their call - a loud tooting note by the ivory-billed and a loud kik kik kik from the pileated - is that the pileated, while listed as "uncommon" in the Peterson Field Guide for Birds, ranges widely from Canada to the southern United States. They are fairly common in our region.

    The ivory-billed range is listed as river-bottom forests of the southeastern United States and Cuba. The guide lists it as "probably extinct." But the guide was wrong, according to the recent sightings that have been much in the news.

    The New York Historical Society ran a full-age ad in the New York Times last week that was headlined, "See the Bird Everyone's Talking About." The text that followed said, "In a sighting hailed as miraculous, a legendary bird thought to be extinct reappears. See for yourself as John James Audubon's magnificent original watercolor of the 'Lord God bird' takes its perch in New York City - now through May 22 only."

    I'd say it's really something when a bird can get as much coverage in modern media as a runaway bride. Accounts of the discovery of a single ivory-billed woodpecker in the cypress and tupelo swamp of the Cache River National Wildlife Refuge, in Arkansas, have stressed the importance of conservation efforts of both government and private organizations that had preserved the habitat that will be needed if the ivory-billed woodpecker is to survive.

    This weekend many of us who have been working for several years on the Mississippi Flyway Birding Festival will be leading visitors into the backwaters and bluffs, our own fine collection of preserved and protected lands, to see what birds we can find, both those passing through on their way north and those that will use the habitat here for nesting and rearing their young.

    I'll be helping to lead a kayak and canoe tour of the Upper Mississippi River Fish and Wildlife Refuge backwaters, and I'm hoping that the pileated woodpecker will put in an appearance for our group as it did for last year's tour.

    Someone might well say, "Lord God, look at that bird." It's every bit as spectacular as the ivory-billed except, perhaps, for the lack of a good publicityagent and the long-time-no-see factor.

    All stories copyright 2000, 2001, 2002 Onalaska Community Life and other attributed sources.

  • It just doesn't pay to be pileated

    • Get Current Updates on the Search
    for the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker!



  • Bird Watcher�s Home Page


  • Woodpecker Thought Extinct Rediscovered - Links


  • Ivory Billed Woodpecker Links Page 1


    • News Article Archives

  • IBW News Page 1


  • IBW News Page 2


  • IBW News Page 3


  • IBW News Page 4


  • IBW News Page 5