Kints

"...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, May 4, 2019

Boy, and Other Business

My stepson -- who I will refer to here as "Boy" -- is 15 and is having the kind of troubles in school many of us are familiar with: bullies, girls, fitting in. He also gets the most enjoyment out of electronic games, which were only a brief diversion for me "back in the day" and at whose modern manifestations I am hopelessly inept.

Back in April I took Boy down to the Stronghold, for the long hike on Hollow Man Road. He surprised me with his stamina, and was awed by the great silence of the Swamp, broken only by the voices of birds and of the wind in the trees. We paused about a half mile in, so that I could let him watch some of the Cornell video, and to have a listen to the old audio of the Ivorybill. Nothing like hearing those recorded kent-calls in true Ivorybill habitat. He seemed a bit awed.

Hollow Man was open for a visit.

Hollow Man Lake, where I spied my first swallow-tailed kite of the year as it wheeled above the nearby River.

Last leg of the trail: to Elephant Man Swamp.

Looking north from Elephant Man Swamp. The Lord God Tree is well hidden by foliage now, as he prefers.

End of the trail: Elephant Man Swamp.

Not sure what flowers these are. They were on a large shrub or small tree at the field's edge.

Now I'd like to share with you some words from our friend Dean Hurliman of Iowa. Dean had requested this be shared in a comment on the last post, but they are deserving of a more visible location within the main body.

There will be no Blue Fairy with a transforming wand for the Hurliman IBWs, no Jiminy Cricket to befriend them. And yet...if Brian and Chris were to show me their photos and say:

"Come see the Ivory-Bills we've found

Where the ancient Cypress grow."

I should go with them through the swamp

Hoping it might be so.

Dean S. Hurliman

P.S. Thanks to Thomas Hardy's poem "The Oxen".

I hope to take the 'yak out tomorrow for a visit to mighty Hutson Lake, the grand old oxbow commanding the north end of the Stronghold. Meanwhile, the rains are here today, polishing the new green leaves among which big birds may easily hide from prying eyes.

Friday, March 29, 2019

In Dreams: 23 March 2019

Fulfilling a promise to our friend Dean Hurliman, my brother Brian and I took our Hurliman Ivorybills out for some sunlight and fresh Spring air. In case you missed it, these simply astonishing works of art were gifted to us by artist Dean Hurliman of Iowa. The big male is mine; Brian was gifted the other two, slightly smaller male and female. We are still deeply, deeply humbled by the generosity of this kindred spirit.

It was a perfect Spring day in Elephant Man Swamp, in the far southern end of the Stronghold. Red, white, glossy black, and antique white shone above the dark waters. For a few magical moments, we allowed ourselves to believe. And it was marvellous.

(Photos: Brian Carlisle)

Earlier, we hiked through swarms of mosquitoes to visit the Ancient of Days, waking up from his long sleep, drinking deep of waters from the overflow of the Pascagoula.

(Photos: Brian Carlisle)

The white flowers belong to a Styrax americanus, or American snowbell, a species we have not (knowingly) encountered before. This one grows along the overgrown trail, within a hundred yards or so of the Ancient of Days.

Thank you for visiting our blog. We will continue to post accounts of our search for the Ivory-billed Woodpecker in the Pascagoula River Basin.

Saturday, February 23, 2019

Mucking about the Leaf Wilderness: 18 February 2019

I took an increasingly rare opportunity to get afield on President's Day. I spent most of the morning meandering along the ridgeline where a beech/holly/pine slope forest meets baldcypress/tupelo swamp. Birds were quiet, though I heard and observed downy and red-bellied woodpeckers, and heard heavy tapping that was probably a pileated woodpecker. It was cool (50's F), and windy in the trees atop Holly Ridge, as I call it, but the swamp was still.

Looking down into the swamp from Holly Ridge.

Beaver work on a pine along Holly Ridge. I found more beaver sign like this along the ridge.

An impressive beech.

Pine snag, one of many in the Leaf. The area is still littered with pines killed in the passing of Hurricane Katrina.

Young spruce pine.

Extensive scaling on a dead tupelo. Likely pileated woodpecker work. The species is very active in the Leaf Wilderness.

Heavy rains later in the week will likely render much of the habitat in the Pascagoula River Basin inaccessible.

Thanks to all who continue to visit this page.

Tuesday, October 30, 2018

Boneyard Lake: 5 October 2018

Brian and I drove down to the Pascagoula River Swamp to explore Boneyard Lake and its environs, a little-known-to-us corner of the WMA. We'd heard of the lake before, as it has been a favored subject of local photographers, and is known as the site of a heron rookery. We arrived a little after dawn, and quickly put our kayaks into the dark, still water, making a rough counter-clockwise arc through the baldcypress and tupelo along the lake's eastern half.

Photo: Brian Carlisle.

I noticed here and there "trails" through the still layer of algae on the lake's surface.

A scattering of white feathers on the surfcae suggested to me an egret met its end here.

Photo: Brian Carlisle.

Here I believe I was probably stuck on a submerged log. This happened to me several times and never failed to unnerve. Photo: Brian Carlisle.

We observed cormorants, wood ducks, red-bellied and pileated woodpeckers, crows, some kind of small hawk, several egrets, a lone tricolored heron, and a great blue heron. The trees thin out towards the west side of the lake, though evidently that's where the rookery lies.

I was glad to be done with the kayaking, for although it was easy enough (submerged logs aside), I could not help but think the lake might be a haven for alligators. "Boneyard Lake" sounds forbidding enough.

We drove on down the WMA road, following the line of the River to our west, twice stopping to explore on foot. At the second trailhead we set off on a trail through some modest second-growth bottomland forest, which for a while took us through a long, narrow field. Eventually the trail reached the River, and we followed it on southward to a nice sandbar, where we rested before turning back. It was well before noon, and very warm and muggy, with little wind.

Sycamore and water oak, growing together. Photo: Brian Carlisle.

Brian nearly stepped on this piglet, which lay still among the leaf-litter beneath a tree at the end of the field. It ambled off, and we later viewed a large family of hogs on more than one occasion.

Always a welcome sight: our friend, the Pascagoula River.

Freshwater mussel track.

Though I was well pleased we were able to explore this place, I do not expect to return, unless it is to explore the bottomland well to the south of Boneyard. The forest is patchy in places and less mature overall than what we have found elsewhere in the Basin, particularly in the Stronghold and the area around John Goff Slough, and of course the fastness of Big Swamp.

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.