Kints: Pierce Lake, 29 October 2015

"...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."

Monday, November 2, 2015

Pierce Lake, 29 October 2015

IBWOH: Brian Carlisle.

Summary: My brother Brian makes a solo pilgrimage to the Pascagoula River Swamp to set up a game camera on an interesting tree cavity, and explores and photographs beautiful Pierce Lake, which he and I had glimpsed at the end of our hike of 22 October. Regular readers of this blog will by now be familiar with the quality photographic images Brian regularly produces: all the following photos are by him; the few captions are by me, from information he provides on his Facebook photo group, The Humble Hiker.

Woodpecker apartments in a tupelo. Dry slough near Pierce Lake.

Pierce Lake is a fairly large oxbow in the central Pascagoula Wildlife Management Area (WMA).

The sloughs and bottoms around Pierce are typical cypress-tupelo swamp forest.

Brian reports that woodpecker activity in the area was high, especially Pileateds.

Red-headed Woodpecker.

Black racer, a common snake species in the WMA.

Box turtle, another common reptile species here.

Orchard orb-weaver.

After hiking around Pierce Lake much of the day, Brian drove up to the landing where he and I had launched our kayaks the previous month. The Pascagoula River has risen considerably, thanks in large part to rains brought by the remnants of Hurricane Patricia.

The bend near the Otter Pond area can be seen downstream in the distance.

Conclusions: Brian feels strongly that the Pierce Lake area warrants further study. Given the maturity of the cypress-tupelo forest and the preponderance of woodpecker species there, that is probably not a bad idea.

Drawing down the Moon over Dacy Lake in the predawn hour.

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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.