"...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, June 24, 2019

Hutson Lake, 5 March 2019

A morning kayak of Hutson Lake, my favorite grand old oxbow off the upper reaches of the Pascagoula River.  Birds were very active, especially flycatchers and Prothonotary warblers; I watched a female of the latter species building a nest in a dead snag just inches from the waterline. 

I took few photos; and I need to note here ongoing difficulties I am having with uploading video from my iPhone to YouTube.  So this post, and likely posts in the near term, will be brief.

 I kayaked mostly among the trees on the north end of the oxbow.



 This dead tupelo has been heavily worked on.  I do not often see Pileated Woodpeckers out over the water, but this does suggest Pileated work to me.
 

 Large, recently completed beaver lodge.

 This dead relict still stands, a few years after my brother and I first encountered it.  


Thanks to all who continue to visit this blog, and for the words of encouragement.  My visits to the Swamp have decreased, but I now have more reasons for going, which I will not yet divulge here.  I can only say that I will from time to time step into that world, and share my time there, as long as I live nearby.
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