Pic of the Day

Pileated Woodpecker, Ivory-billed Woodpecker, Imperial Woodpecker:

photo by Bobby Harrison, courtesy of AMNH

     Follow the link below to follow Tim Gallagher's daily blog about his search for the Ivory-billed Woodpecker in Cuba.

https://www.audubon.org/new/the-guest-ivory-billed-woodpecker-heads-cuba

Pic of the Day

Florida Scrub Jay, Aphelocoma coerulescens;  Merritt Island NWR, Florida

     I love photographing scrub jays, and the birds at Merritt Island are some of the best.  As soon as my friend Tim Gallagher and I walked into their habitat, scrub jays flew in and landed atop our heads looking for a handout.  It appears that these partiuclar birds are fed on a regular basis by birders.  This jay alighted in nearby scrub hoping we would have something for it.  Fortunately it stayed on this branch long enough for me to get a shot.

Tim Gallagher and Florida Scrub Jay

This is one of the jays that alighted on our heads awaiting a handout.  Both Tim and I had a great time shooting these birds......once they stopped landing on us!

Top Image:  Nikon D800, Nikkor 500mm f4, 1/800 second @ f7.1

Imperial Dreams : Coming to a bookstore near you on April 16, 2013

Bobby Harrison (L) and Tim Gallagher (R) at Arroyo de los Monos, Mexico

     The Imperial Woodpecker….an Ivorybill, and the largest of its clan, is, or was the largest woodpecker that has ever lived.  This magnificent bird is the topic of Tim Gallagher’s latest book, Imperial Dreams.  

    Tim, a great friend, and the person who was with me in 2004 when we saw the Ivory-billed Woodpecker on Bayou de View, Arkansas has spent the last four or more years on the trail of the Imperial Woodpecker of Mexico.  Tim made numerous trips to Mexico to interview people who saw the bird in the middle of the last century, and to track down recent sighting that were only a couple of years old.

     I have had the privilege to read the pre-release proof of the book, and like Tim’s previous books it is a WINNER!  Tim is one the best authors I have ever read, and like his other books, once you start reading you will not want to put it down.   Tim tells a riveting story of a bird whose natural history is virtual unknown.  Tim has made a herculean effort to successfully unravel the mystery of the imperial woodpecker.   His travels through Mexico takes you to the peaceful Arroyo de los Monos, to  harrowing life and death encounters with drug traffickers in Durango.

     I was fortunate to make a trip to Mexico with Tim in February, 2009.  Tim writes about our adventure in the chapter “From Ivorybills to Imperials.”  It was a great trip, and helped me to really appreciate my life here at home.  My favorite part of the trip was Arroyo de los Monos, the site of ancient petroglyphs that dated back some eight-hundred years. 

     Tim, John, (our guide) and I spent an entire afternoon in the arroyo photographing the ancient works of art.   From the start of the trip this was the place I really wanted to visit, because it held what is believed to be the oldest known drawing of an imperial woodpecker.   Tim had been to the site on a previous trip and knowing that I really wanted to see the imperial petroglyph made it a point to get me there before the trip was over.

     Know one really knows why ancient peoples etched images onto rock surfaces.  They could have created such works to tell a story, make a statement or just pass time, but for what ever reason Arroyo de los Monos is filled with petroglyphs.  
     The imperial petroglyph was about twenty-feet up the side of the canyon wall, and was in a difficult spot for someone to do an etching.  Perhaps there was better footing eight-hundred years ago.  I photographed the petroglyph from every possible angle and when I finished shooting the imperial petroglyph, I turned my camera to others.  There were petroglyphs of avocets, coyotes, men, geometric shapes and creatures I could not identify.  I shot them all.  I could not have imagined a better way to end my adventure in Mexico.

     Tim’s book, “Imperial Dreams” will go on sale April 16, 2013.  If you loved “The Grail Bird,”  You’ll love “Imperial Dreams.”

Tim’s blog: www.imperial-dreams.blogspot.com is up and running.  He is posting about his adventures into the land of the Imperial Woodpecker every few days.  Check-it-out.

I have placed the "Imperial Derams" address in “Bobby’s Favorite Blogs”  here to the right for easy access.  Tim has been posting quite often so check out the blog frequently.

Congratulations on another GREAT book Tim!

    
Here are a few images from my trip with Tim.

Arroyo de los Monos, Mexico.  The Imperial Petroglyph is on the right.

Imperial Woodpecker Petroglyph, Arroyo de los Monos, Mexico

An unexpected snow storm forced Tim, John (our guide) and I, to cross this 8,125 feet high pass to get back to the eastern side of the Sierra Madera Occidentals.  Had we not made it across we would have been stuck in a remote region for a week or more.  The trip down the mountains was slippery and treacherous, but we made it.  The snow was at least a foot and half deep here on the road, a beautiful winter wonderland in the mountains of Mexico.

Here is Tim standing in the snow just before heading over the pass 
pictured above.  After seeing this image it looks as if the snow as 
closer to 2 feet deep.  I was very skeptical about driving over the 
pass and down the mountains.  I would have felt better about going
down the mountains if I were driving, buy we made it just fine.

 www.imperial-dreams.blogspot.com

Ivory-billed Woodpecker News

Painting from the
Auk, 1889; Vol. 15,  No3; p217-223

     For those of you who are interested in what’s happening on the ivory-billed woodpecker front you can follow the links listed below. 

     In a nutshell, Martjan Lammertink discovered what is believed to be the only known photo documentation (16mm film) of an imperial woodpecker.  The film was shot in 1956 in the state of Durango, Mexico by amateur ornithologist William Rhein.  The imperial is a close relative of the ivory-billed woodpecker of our southern states.  In the latest issue of the Auk, Martjan, and Tim Gallagher published a scientific paper on the film, and the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology released the film for public viewing on their website.  Tim also published a popular article in Living Bird.

See the film at:  http://www.youtube.com/embed/bZCTPkQIJj4?rel=0

The Auk article abstract:

www.birds.cornell.edu/imperial

“Return to Durango”, in Living Bird magazine by Tim Gallagher:

http://www.allaboutbirds.org/Page.aspx?pid=2314&utm_source=Cornell+Lab+eNews&utm_campaign=9fd3ba100c-Cornell_Lab_eNews_2011_10_2610_26_2011&utm_medium=email#top

     The film has made quite a stir.  Ivorybill investigator Bill Pullium, who has been agnostic about the Luneau ivorybill video has done an extensive analysis of the imperial woodpecker film in comparison to the Luneau ivorybill video.  In his conclusion Pullium simply states:

“The bird in the video shot by David Luneau in Arkansas in 2004 is an Ivory-billed Woodpecker, Campephilus principalis. I have no residual doubts, either personal or scientific. This species did not go extinct in 1945 or 1984, it persisted at least through 2004 and is quite likely still extant as I type these words. All the anomalies identified a priori (without foreknowledge of the Imperial film) in the flight of the Luneau bird that did not appear to line up with a Pileated Woodpecker do line up with the documented flight of an Imperial Woodpecker, the Ivorybill's closest relative.”

Bill Pullium analysis is well worth reading and can be found at this link:

http://bbill.blogspot.com/2011/11/imperial-film.html

An interesting series of comments about the analysis can be found on the “IVORYBILLLIVE” blog.

http://ivorybills.blogspot.com/2011/11/further-imperial-analysis.html

This link will take you to additional analysis by Bill Pullium that he posted on November 14.  The 11 comments at the end of the post are worth reading!

http://bbill.blogspot.com/2011/11/woodpecker-wingbeats-revisited.html

Also, if you are looking for updates on the ivory-billed woodpecker, you can always go my ivorybill blog at:  www.ibwfound.blogspot.com

7th Anniversary of Ivory-billed Woodpecker Sighting

Some Ivory-billed Woodpecker sighting location in

Bayou Deview during 2004-2005 search season.

Sighting mention below are indicated on this map

   It was Seven years ago today that Tim Gallagher and I saw an Ivory-billed Woodpecker on Bayou Deview in the Cache River National Wildlife Refuge.   It is a day I will never forget.  I had researched and searched for the Ivory-bill for thirty-three years prior to the 2004 sighting.  Reports of Ivory-bills had been made almost every year of every decade since 1944, and research told me that they could still be extant.  On February 27^th, 2004 I knew that they were.  Well, at least one.

   Over the next year I had an additional 5 sightings.  The very next day, February 28^th , I saw an Ivory bill flying southwest, about a half mile south of the first sighting of the previous day.  My third sighting came on May 5^th, the fourth on June 9^th, and a 5^th  sighting came of September 4^th.  All three of these sighting were within 525 feet of each other.  My 6^th sighting occurred 3/4^th of a mile north of Arkansas Hwy 17 on January 22, 2005.  This sighting was special, for I saw two birds flying together.  This was the first time that I knew there was more than one Ivory-bill in the Bayou Deview search area.  Based on the number of sighting that were occurring on Bayou Deview during early 2004, I believed that at least one or more Ivory-bills were making feeding forays into Bayou Deview about once every two weeks.  

   My January 22^nd sighting was the last time I positively identified Ivory-bills on Bayou Deview.   The sighting Tim and I had on February 27^th 2004 was four years after a major ice storm had hit the area.   The ice storm was severe and created good feeding habitat for Ivory-bills.  Perhaps that is why there were Ivory-bills in the area when Tim and I arrived in February 2004.

To read more about the February 27^th 2004 sighting follow this link:

http://www.ibwfound.org/rediscovery.cfm

Me, Buzz, and the Moon

Waxing Gibbous Moon photographed July 31, 2009

Nikon D300, Nikkor 500mm f4, Digital Capture, ISO 200; 

Photographed from Horse Cove, Alabama

   July 20th, 1969, a day I will never forget as long as I live. It was one of the most exciting days of my life and perhaps yours as well. It was the day that man landed on the moon. Wow, that was 41 years ago!
     Long before I was a hard-core birder and bird photographer, I was a space junky. During my junior high and high school years I lived and breathed astronomy and space travel. How could I not? I lived just 20 miles from Huntsville, Alabama at the time. Wernher Von Braun was director of the Marshall Space Flight Center. He and his team designed the Saturn V rocket that carried man to the moon. For me it was an exciting time to live! I spent nights in the backyard with my telescope observing the moon and the planets. I mapped the rotation of the Galilean moons of Jupiter in their orbits, observered comets and cut my teeth on astrophotography. Now that I think of it; It was a miracle that I ever found someone to marry me!

Buzz Aldrin on the moon. Photo by Neil Armstrong.....

                .... I wasn't able to get there to photograph the event.

     Later in life I got to meet some of those heroes of the early space program. Buzz Aldrin was one of them. I first met Buzz in 1992 when he was visiting bookstores to promote his book, “Encounter with Tiber.” I was asked to photograph the event, and of-course, I jumped at the opportunity. The first hour-and-a-half was very busy with a constant flow of autograph seekers (me being one), then there was no one there but Buzz and me. The two of us sat and talked for over an hour. I asked questions and he happily told stories to answer them. It was fascinating to have Buzz Aldrin to myself, telling stories of flying, his favorite aircraft and his time at NASA. This was another moment in time that I will never forget.

Left to Right, Kathy Sullivan, Bobby Harrison, Sylvia Earle,

 Buzz Aldrin: Photo by Whitney Harrison Robison

In 2006 I had another opportunity to meet Buzz. In 2005, Tim Gallagher (editor of Living Bird Magazine) and I had been elected to the Explorers Club in New York City. In 2006 we were among the honorees at the clubs annual dinner to receive the Explorers Club Conservationist of the Year Award. When I arrived at the pre-dinner events there was Buzz and a number of other Great Americans such as astronaut Kathy Sullivan, oceanographer Sylvia Earle, entomologist E. O. Wilson (a fellow Alabamian), and others. I must say, it was pretty cool ...........another day I will never forget!

Notes on moon Photography: Photographing the moon is easy. For a full moon set the shutter speed at the inverse of the ISO setting at f8. Example, if your camera ISO is set at 200. Set the shutter speed at 1/200 of a second at f8 or any equivalent. The faster the shutter speed the better. So convert the 1/200 @ f8, to 1/800 @ f4. If the moon is at a first quarter open the aperture 1 stop. With your digital camera you can check the exposure and make adjustments if needed.