"...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."

Saturday, June 28, 2014

Excursion: West Tiger Creek, 28 June 2014

At the suggestion of "fangsheath" from the Ivory-billed Woodpecker forum, this morning I visited an area where burned-over pine meets a narrow band of mixed bottomland, which has the potential for wood borer blooms.  I was in the woods shortly after dawn.  It had rained the night before, so the forest was still dripping wet, and it was very humid and still.  The bugs were no problem, but after a couple of hours fighting the thick brush, I grew weary and ready to retire.  There were a few big trees, mostly pines, but at least one very large poplar over fifty years old, and a goodly number of white oak.

This area was burned over back in March, I believe. 

This pine had some strange bark growth to it. 

Not sure what caused it. 

I did happen upon a feather from friend Dryocopus pileatus:

 
So it was not a complete washout.  But I am tired.  I may not head out into the field for several days.

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