Regarding blunt or fan shaped tail, in addition to the photo MMNY and others "discovered" in the LSU archives posted above previously, there are two photos in that same collection of Ivory-bills in flight (identified by Tanner) that show blunt looking tails (or at least not tapering or triangular in shape). Also, we need to remember that when the tail comes into view this bird had just made a sharp turn to its right and is maneuvering (I think you can see the tail constantly adjusting which would support the need to have a fanned tail, regardless of species). Some have suggested that the bird may have spotted Mike's sudden movement to get his camera in position and veered away, otherwise it would have flown by near him (who knows, but the bird clearly makes a sudden adjustment in trajectory).
Regarding the bill (which one would think would always be obvious), all three of these archived photos show birds with heads, but no visible bills. Regarding the lack of apparent white along the leading wing edges in almost all frames (however see below), this video is seriously backlight and so that is not surprising (see the classic picture of the 1930s female with wings fully extended where the white leading edge of underwing is barely visible and this was a relatively close bird to the photographer). Neither of these issues are helpful in resolving the identification of this bird.
Anyway, with the exception of the classic photo of a bird in flight, this mini-discussion illustrates that the 1930s Cornell Ivory-bill Team took lousy pictures of Ivory-bills back then too. So nothing new today on that score (of course they also took no doubt amazing pictures of ivory-bills that has to still be duplicated today).
The bird in Mike's Nov. 5 video is no doubt a woodpecker, but if you look at individual frames, one could suggest some kind of raptor (Mississippi Kite, Northern Harrier early on), a swift or maybe a falcon, perhaps a duck, and even may be a spotted sandpiper, in addition to being one of three candidate woodpecker species. It is important in my opinion to look at the film as a whole and here the fact that this is a woodpecker comes into "focus."
So we are left in my opinion with Pileated, Red-headed, and maybe Ivory-billed Woodpecker as contenders. We need to figure out what is in the majority of frames that is inconsistent "consistently" with Pileated and Red-headed first before we can go any further. The placement of the white as far as we can tell seems to eliminate Pileated right off the bat and to my knowledge no experienced observers are seriously considering Pileated, but not sure we can clearly eliminate the possibility either. That said, of the side-by-side comparisons I've seen thus far, they all seem to show consistently narrower and longer wings relative to the body for Mike's bird when wings are fully extended than we would expect from a Pileated.
I'm still not sure what to expect from a frame-by-frame breakdown of a video of Red-headed undergoing extended flight as almost all the footage I've seen thus far are of birds hawking for flying insects. While instructive, I really would like to see a video of an extended flight before I say any more other than to say I would expect Red-headed wings to appear relatively broad and short relative to the body (perhaps similar to Pileated, relatively, but perhaps not).
The white that appears in some of Mike's Nov. 5 frames would seem to be a slam-dunk at minimum for not being able to eliminate Red-headed from consideration. In fact, many knowledgeable commentators have already concluded that this bird has to be a Red-headed based on some of these later frames. Perhaps, but when it appears most obvious, the white is extensive down the upper half of the tail which would be inconsistent with Red-headed and reminds me a bit of a Northern Wheatear's tail. In fact, like a Wheatear I think I'm seeing what appears to be a dark median mark cutting into the white in the upper tail. In addition, the white when it appears in one frame disappears in the following frame. Not sure what is going on here, but I'm suspicious of a lighting artifact. There could be white on the rump that only appears at a specific angle where (as with the wings), the light shines through the feathers (which may be consistent with the tail feathers but I would think is inconsistent for the rump as this area covers the body and light shouldn't be shining through). There also could be bleed from the white secondaries into the rump area extending into the upper tail (which would be consistent for both species), or who knows. Regardless visible white in the rump area on the surface does not support Ivory-bill, but as suggested above the circumstances underwhich we see "light" color is perhaps not consistent with what should be on a Red-headed either.
As mentioned above is the lack of obvious white in the leading edge in most frames, but "light on the leading edge of the underwing may in fact appear in earlier frames as the wings are held extended lateral to the body (and perhaps slightly above the horizontal), where the bird appears most kite/harrier like. It is in these frames also that the extent of white in the underwing, both leading and trailing edges appear to be the least "truncated." Also note the very obvious black wing-tip in these and all subsequent frames early in the video when the underwings are in view. I await more detailed assessments on whether or not these views suggest that the white in the underwings in these early frames is still too truncated, consistent with Red-headed and not with Ivory-bill, but later frames do suggest more truncated white secondaries in the upperwing at least. Again is this due to a lighting artifact?
I await more detailed assessments on whether or not these earlier frames, suggesting much more extensive white in the underwings compared with later frames, along with wing shape, are enough to suggest Red-headed Woodpecker is not a good fit for the available evidence. Right now in my opinion Red-headed cannot be eliminated as a possibility, but patience and time will tell whether Red-headed is the best fit for the available evidence.
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