Richard has hit the nail on the head -- if the *only* evidence were the video, and  two groups, none of whom had seen the bird in person, had carefully examined this video and come to two different conclusions as to the bird's ID, I would be more inclined to be on the side of the doubters since they represent some of the country's top field birders. 

However supposedly there have also been some very experienced field observers who have seen, in the flesh, an IBWO, and are convinced that is what they saw. Now, what are we out here supposed to think? That a group of experienced field observers are suffering from mass self-delusion or some directed attempt to deceive? I would hate to think this. That they cannot tell a Pileated from an Ivory-bill? This is not a difficult ID task, even with relatively brief views. The "abberant" Pileated hypothesis? -- this is certainly possible and could prove to be the crux of the problem, but if it is a Pileated, then why no further photos of this particular bird? Pileateds are not that shy, are noisy and should be easy to relocate. They will come in to a tape of their calls and drums, for example. Maybe the real problem is that the area in which the (whatever the bird is) exists IS large, very difficult to explore, and birds can move away from disturbance far more easily than observers can make their way through the swamp. 

It is unfortunate that definitive photographic evidence (of either IBWO or aberrant Pileated) has not been forthcoming but until either hypothesis has more evidence to support it, I don't think what is essentially a scientific dispute should be waged in the newspaper. I remain a skeptic at this point for either camp's theory -- we simply need more data.

Just my thoughts on the issue...

Gail Mackiernan
Colesville, MD
 -------------- Original message ----------------------
From: Richard Wood <>
> This is a perfect example of what I mean by people not seeing something deciding 
> what species a bird is.  I would assume that the people that shot the videotape 
> got a better look at the bird than what is seen on the video, so shouldn't they 
> be the ones that are allowed to decide what it is?  I have a great deal of 
> respect for both David Sibley and Kenn Kaufmann, but I believe that they should 
> stay out of it, since they didn't see what the Cornell team did.
>  
>  Good birding,
>  Richard
>  
>