>From: Janet Millenson <>
>Date: Thu Mar 16 16:57:54 CST 2006
>To: 
>Subject: [MDOSPREY] Sibley doubts Ivory-bill

>Uh-oh, now David Sibley is challenging the Ivory-billed Woodpecker 
>identification. According to today's New York Times [snip]

[I tried posting a version of this earlier, but my computer did something odd and I think it was lost.  Please forgive me if the earlier (and more hastily drafted) version shows up too.]

NPR featured this story on Morning edition today, including a rebuttal to Sibley et al. by Cornell’s John Fitzpatrick.  An interesting bit of he said, she said. 

I must say, though, that I was a bit put off by a comment made by Kenn Kaufman in the Times article.  Referring to a sighting made not long after Gene Sparling’s initial sighting (not to mention Mary Scott’s), Kaufman states: "My best guess is that Gallagher and Harrison made a mistake.  ...  They made an honest mistake. And everything just sort of cascaded on from that."

This relates in my mind to the recent (and recurring) thread on MDOsprey about experts who second guess sightings.  Second guessing comes in two forms:  (1) considered judgments based on solid evidence - such as where a sightings committee rejects a submission on the basis that it was a case of mistaken identity, or where evidence submitted is inconclusive; and (2) judgments based on no evidence beyond the word of a birder (or group of birders).  As to the first category, I have no problems.  But as to the second category, I think big problems can arise.  

In the Ivory-bill example, we have a noted birder and nature author claiming two very experienced birders made a “mistake,” despite the fact that their sighting was made together and with contemporaneous notes taken.  I think this is hubris on Kaufman’s part, and disrespectful to Gallagher and Harrison.  I also think it was very unfortunate that Kaufman chose to opine in such a public way - in the pages of the New York Times.  Having read Gallagher’s report of the sighting, I don’t happen to agree with Kaufman.  But even if I thought they saw a pileated, I would never presume to second guess them in such a public way.  It’s more respectful to be an agnostic in such a case (“I’m not sure what they saw.”) than a nay sayer - particularly if in the end, Kaufman et al. turn out to have been mistaken themselves.

Kaufman has every right to make the Ivory-bill’s existence a question mark, but I find it arrogant for him to make the question mark a period in the absence of solid proof of his negative, and to do so by publicly implying that Gallagher and Harrison are unreliable.  I believe it’s just this sort of arrogance that would justify birders to blow off at the “high priests” of birding as they have here on MDOsprey of late.  (Again, I would distinguish this second guessing from careful review of photo evidence - category one above - that I don’t think of as either arrogant or disrespectful in the abstract, though even here, experts should be careful how they say things, as should we all.) 

In contrast to Kaufman, Sibley, to his credit, confined his remarks to the Luneau film.  The Times states Sibley’s of the view that “there is simply no conclusive evidence that the ivory bill has escaped extinction.”  Of course, there is no conclusive evidence that the ivory bill has become extinct, thank goodness.

By the way, has anyone else been following the notes of the birder in the Pearl River Basin who claims to have found Ivory-bills?  His evidence includes a video as hard to interpret as Luneau’s (though look at the wing beats - both in the Luneau and this other video, they seem to fast for a pileated - a point made with respect to the Luneau video this morning on NPR by Fitzgerald).  Here’s a link:  http://www.fishcrow.com/winter06.html.

Tom Stock
Silver Spring, Md.
altomomatic at verizon dot net