Kints: The IBWO Has Landed

"...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."

Thursday, November 19, 2015

The IBWO Has Landed

Yesterday, I came home after work to find a work of art in a very large box on my carport.

The carving is by poet and artist Dean Hurliman of Iowa, with whom I have had the great pleasure of corresponding this autumn. Dean shares the hope and optimism of many regarding the Ivorybill, and it is reflected in the determined, even defiant look of this carving.

As I grow older I have come to prize most that art which is given to me freely by family members and friends, both of which I am blessed to have in abundance. Dean, your gift is an honor, as is your friendship, neither of which I could have forseen when I began this endeavor. It's all a bit humbling, to be honest.

Here's to hope, and faith, and the Quest.

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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.

Thursday, November 19, 2015

The IBWO Has Landed

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