Kints: Excursion: Kingdom of DeSoto, 11 June 2014

"...the ornithologists still had serious doubts. Sutton finally put it directly: 'Mr. Spencer, you're sure the bird you're telling us about isn't the big pileated woodpecker?'

"Spencer exploded. 'Man alive! These birds I'm tellin' you all about is kints!' he shouted in their faces. 'Why, the pileated woodpecker's just a little bird about as big as that.' He held his fingers a few inches apart. 'A kint's as big as that!' he said, holding his arms wide... 'Why, man, I've known kints all my life. My pappy showed 'em to me when I was just a kid. I see 'em every fall when I go deer huntin' down aroun' my place on the Tinsaw. They're big birds, I tell you, big and black and white; and they fly through the woods like pintail ducks!'

"After Spencer's outburst, the members of the team were all believers -- not just because of his vehemence, but because his description was so accurate. Ivory-bills do not have the typical bounding flight of the pileated woodpecker. They generally fly away high and straight, with stiff flight feathers, looking very much like a pintail, and their call is a distinctive nasal kent, kent, kent -- very similar to the local name Spencer used, kint. Sutton and the others couldn't wait to get to the bayou and start searching.

"As it turned out, that was not an easy proposition..." --Gallagher, Tim. The Grail Bird: Hot on the Trail of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker, pp. 10-11: "Of People and Peckerwoods."

Friday, June 13, 2014

Excursion: Kingdom of DeSoto, 11 June 2014

I am lucky enough to live within 15-20 minutes of one of the largest tracts of pine forest in the entire Southeast; and, more specifically, to a nice 3-mile trail that affords me views of upland pine forest, mixed bottomland hardwoods, thickets, and a couple of nice ponds, one of which is home to a couple of pairs of wood ducks. Some mornings, when I do not have to be at my "regular" job until later, I can be in these woods at dawn, and be back home in time for a good breakfast and to knock out a few chores. This past Wednesday was such a day, and was moreover bright and fresh after a cool front moved through the night before.

Only a couple of hundred yards from the trailhead, I spotted this pine, which I had never really paid attention to before (even though I've probably hiked this trail a dozen times):

This pine was either fire-killed or killed by beetle infestation, I think; it did not bear the telltale sign of lightning strike, a narrow line bare of bark running up the length of the tree. I do not see any drilling in this tree, which is a sure sign of nearly every woodpecker species that haunts these woods, including the Red-cockaded. There is a line of very large mixed bottomland forest about three hundred yards on down the trail, which contains a significant number of dead pines of impressive size, and where I have observed pileateds feeding on several occasions.

Besides this, the only other item of interest that day was this fellow, who graciously allowed me to not only photograph him, but to dig out my Peterson's guide to identify his species. Any sparrows beyond the White-throated, White-crowned, and Fox, are problematic.

Field Sparrow.

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Our Ivorybill Library

Gallagher, Tim. 'The Grail Bird: Hot on the Trail of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker.' A well-written and engrossing read by one of the few active Ivorybill searchers, documenting the "Rediscovery" in Arkansas in 2004 and the subsequent efforts to document the species there.
Hoose, Philip. 'The Race to Save the Lord God Bird.' Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2004. Now a bit dated, but still a good general history of the species and its relationship with humans in both the United States and Cuba.
Jackson, Jerome A. 'In Search of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker.' Smithsonian Books, 2004. A true cornerstone of the literature by an expert on Ivorybills.
Snyder, Noel F.R., Brown, David E., and Clark, Kevin B. 'The Travails of Two Woodpeckers: Ivory-Bills & Imperials.' University of New Mexico Press, 2009. An important and somewhat controversial work that challenges some long-held assumptions regarding the decline of the Ivory-bill. The book also raises important questions about successful approaches to species conservation.
Steinberg, Michael K. 'Stalking the Ghost Bird: The Elusive Ivory-billed Woodpecker in Louisiana.' Louisiana State University Press, 2008.
Tanner, James T. 'The Ivory-billed Woodpecker." 2003 Dover Publications reprint of the 1942 monograph. Essential reading for the serious student of Ivorybill lore.