warming; ibwos move northward? wva sightings?Go to Top
Quote:
Originally Posted by gdebusk
In theory these cycles should affect the range of organisms, but not nearly so dramatically as a warming from Glacial cold to Inter-Glacial warmth within a century. I do not know if that will help us find and photograph the IBWO in modern times, but since I used to be a paleoecologist, I like to think about it.
george, your posit of cool/warm cycles affecting range is interesting for sure. since the u.s. is warming, could that explain the ( 1980's-2001 ) west virginia ibwo sightings i learned about in 2003? WVA has certainly had massive tree kills from invading beetles. did the ibwo follow them up to the greenbriar river valley / ridges in pocohontas county? i think absolutely possible. ibwo was on the pre-1900 bird list for west virginia-i saw the document on the internet. i also have audubon's original u.s range map of ibwo and it covers west virginia and lots more u.s. territory than tanner's.
rip in sc
George & Rip, Thanks for this information. George I had a feeling your background was well founded in science of some sort. In an odd sort of way, my Finance and Auditing background serves me well with regards to the IBWO search, as I spend most days trying to unravel finance and accounting issues , and then fix them.
But I am a mere layman with regards to science; most of what I know is from the monthly periodicals I read.
Rip, is there anyway you can share with us the Audubon IBWO Range Map - I have never seen it. In fact, I never even knew it existed.
original range map; g.stuart keith paper aukletGo to Top
Quote:
Originally Posted by rbw5611
Rip, is there anyway you can share with us the Audubon IBWO Range Map - I have never seen it. In fact, I never even knew it existed.Thanks Again,Ralph
ralph not totally sure it was audubon's map but i think so.
the link is no longer good on www.worldtwitch.com . i did find g. stuart keith's paper, the little known status and distribution of the ivory-billed woodpecker. i've always thought this man's take was inspirational and funny! there''s a search page on worldtwitch that points to ivory-billed woodpecker articles.
george, your posit of cool/warm cycles affecting range is interesting for sure. since the u.s. is warming, could that explain the ( 1980's-2001 ) west virginia ibwo sightings i learned about in 2003? WVA has certainly had massive tree kills from invading beetles. did the ibwo follow them up to the greenbriar river valley / ridges in pocohontas county? i think absolutely possible. ibwo was on the pre-1900 bird list for west virginia-i saw the document on the internet. i also have audubon's original u.s range map of ibwo and it covers west virginia and lots more u.s. territory than tanner's.
rip in sc
Actually the Southeastern United States has cooled just a bit over the last couple of decades, perhaps because of a peculiar regional response to El Nino events. The cooling is in average temperatures, though, and my experience is the winter minimum temperature is a tad higher now than in the late 1970s (of course that is confounded with the climatic effects of urbanization, so it is tough to know for sure). Still, if winter minimum temperature determines the northern limit of distribution, I would expect some short term response. I have a feeling, though, that the range of prey items may be the determining factor. I base this on the former range(or perhaps present range, based on news from Illinois) of the IBWO in the Mississippi Valley ending in a zone of much colder winters than the range on the east coast (it is much colder around Cairo, IL, than Moorehead City, NC).
Oddly, I recall reading one author who observed that the IBWO was present in Maryland in the summer, but disappeared in the winter. I wonder if such seasonal presence in the northern part of the Mississippi Valley range is a possibility?
As for the sightings in West Virginia, I suspect any birds there would have been wanderers like the ones reported for the SC Piedmont or Eastern KY. I do not recall ever seeing nesting records from those areas. Finding enough food to live is one thing, and finding enough food to raise young is something else altogether.
On another note, I stopped by the TNC Search office in Congaree yesterday and found them packing up. Seems the Official Search is over in SC. Citizen Scientists, this is your call to action!
On another note, I stopped by the TNC Search office in Congaree yesterday and found them packing up. Seems the Official Search is over in SC. Citizen Scientists, this is your call to action!
By the way, I am told that they will be trying to publish the results of the two and a half years of searching. I do not think they hit the jackpot (or we would have heard it already), but they will have something to show for the effort.
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New Woodpecker Discovered, Guide Book & PhotosGo to Top
Hi All -
I thought I'd post here on 3 bits that may be of interest to fellow forum members.
(1) NEW Dwarf Woodpecker Species Discovered in Cerrado Region of Brazil
I just stumbled upon a site that announced the discovery of a new dwarf woodpecker species in Brazil at http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news...pecies008.html I could not find this exciting info already posted here, but apologize if it's already old news!
(2) My Favorite Woodpecker Identification Guide
I refer back to a woodpecker guide I have frequently, so I thought I'd mention it. I'm sure many of you have heard of this authoritative guide. It is "Woodpeckers - An Identification Guide to the Woodpeckers of the World" by Hans Winkler, David A. Christie, and David Nurney, 1995 Houghton Mifflin, available at Amazon if you'd like to obtain a copy, and described in detail at montereybay.com/creagrus/woodpeckers.html. I love this 406 page guide for the many, many color pictures comparing related species it has in it. It also contains very detailed info on each of the Campephilus species, as well as a range map for each of them.
(3) UPDATE: Ivory-Billed & Others in the Campephilus Genus Photo Group on Flickr
Finally, just a reminder that I moderate what is, to my knowledge, the largest collection of Campephilus woodpecker photos on the web at http://flickr.com/groups/campephilus It is freely available on Flickr, and you do NOT have to be a member of Flickr to view the photos. The collection grows all the time as I find new photos to add to the group. We are now up to 426 photos in the group! That's great, because when I first mentioned the group here back in 10/2007, we had just 150 photos in the group. Most of the photos in the group are of the Magellanic & Pale-billed Woodpeckers, but we have all the others, but for the only species we are missing, the Crimson-bellied Woodpecker (Campephilus haematogaster), simply because there are no photos of this bird on Flickr. Try an image search in Google, and you'll see that there are very few photos of the Crimson-bellied Woodpecker on the web. According to the guide I mentioned above, the Crimson-bellied Woodpecker is a "very shy woodpecker" that is "apparently not uncommon" which "forages [mainly] at low levels in dense forest." The apparent difficulty of capturing photos of this "not uncommon" bird reminds me of the ongoing quest for a clear photo of the main subject of this forum, Campephilus principalis!
I found a treasure trove of Campephilus videos at the site linked to below. Some of the videos show behaviors in other species of Campephilus that we have speculated about with C. principalis. It is well worth a look.
Note: One thing I noticed on the videos is that all the species of Campephilus have bills that are chisel-shaped, though perhaps not quite as well developed as the chisel of C. Principalis.
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UPDATE: Campephilus Woodpecker Photo GroupGo to Top
Back in Oct 2007, I posted a note regarding a photo group of potential interest to forum members that I moderate on Flickr. It's called Ivory-billed Woodpeckers & Others in the Campephilus Genus. In Oct 2007, there were 150 photos in that group. By June 2008, we had collected over 400 photos.
Today, the collection has grown to include over 600 photos representing woodpeckers from all of the species within the Campephilus genus. The most commonly photographed species, by far, are the Magellanic Woodpeckers and Pale-billed Woodpeckers. But folks have recently shared some wonderful photos of less often photographed species with the group. We recently received a photo of the rarely photographed Crimson-bellied Woodpecker, and a photo of a pair of Red-necked Woodpeckers. Also this week, three photos of a beautiful Robust Woodpecker were shared with the group.
You can simply use the search box in Flickr to quickly locate photos of a particular species.
Fortunately, you do NOT have to be a member of Flickr to browse the vast majority of these wonderful photos!
Of course, we have several historical and museum specimen photos of Ivory-bills, Cuban Ivory-bills and Imperial Woodpeckers in the group. That exciting day when we'll get live Ivory-bill photos added to the group is still to come.
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Habitat Suitability Modelling for the Magellanic WoodpeckerGo to Top
Here is information about recent research, a master's thesis, on the Magellanic Woodpecker (Campephilus magellanicus) entitled Expert Driven Habitat Suitability Modelling for the Magellanic Woodpecker in Karukinka Natural Park, Tierra del Fuego, Chile
"To produce a habitat suitability map of Karukinka Park and surrounding area for the Magellanic woodpecker using a GIS and Multi Criteria Evaluation to help facilitate species location within the park. The map’s purpose is to direct ecologists to areas where woodpeckers may be found and hence reduce time and resources spent on widespread searches for woodpecker sightings."
The thesis argues in support of designating the impressive MAWO as a flagship species in support of protecting wildlife throughout Patagonia, as well as a keystone species and bio-indicator.
I wonder whether the woodpecker would have approached a boa, as I am certain a boa, unlike the present snake (supposedly a whipsnake), would have readily dispatched the bird. I have no idea whether a bird could distinguish between "safe" and "deadly" snakes (although I seem to recall that birds of prey treat rattlesnakes different from non-venomous snakes).
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Re: Campephilus and other rare WoodpeckersGo to Top
A recently posted video on YouTube that shows a Magellanic Woodpecker hammering on a tree in Tierra del Fuego National Park in Argentina. The workings of this powerful bird remind me of the reputation that ivorybills have for their even stronger knocking and hammering as reported in various literature.
The magellanic is the 3rd largest species within the Campephilus genus after the Imperial and Ivory-billed Woodpeckers. Pileated exceed magellanics in length, but the latter are heavier birds than southern pileateds.
These videos let one compare the power of magellanic and pileated woodpeckers and evoke the even greater power of ivorybills, especially when the relative dimensions of these birds are kept in mind.
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Re: Campephilus and other rare WoodpeckersGo to Top
I'm so enamored of all of the Campephilus woodpecckers that I have created a blog devoted to them. The impetus for doing so was achieving more than 1,000 photos contributed to the Ivory-billed and other Campephilus Woodpeckers photo group that I moderate on Flickr - the largest collection, to my knowledge, of Campephilus photos anywhere! I figured "Whats next?", and so the blog is what's next.
warming; ibwos move northward? wva sightings?
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