The Ivorybill Hunter

Jeffrey Gordon, BWD field editor, and expert birder from Delaware, sent me this image taken of him at Bayou DeView, Arkansas, just a short distance away from where the history-altering sightings of 2004 took place.

He writes: I don't know if the picture really conveys the size of the cypress tree--suffice it to say that it's not small. I'm actually standing several feet above ground level on a burned log, so the top of my head is probably 8 to 10 feet up the trunk.

As a part of the official ivory-billed woodpecker search team, Jeff is not able to make any statements about the search efforts in Arkansas. The need for secrecy is huge since so little is known about the birds, including how many of them exist, where they roost, nest, forage. All we've had so far are (the well-documented) anecdotal reports of fly-by birds and a few seconds of accidental video.

Since we cannot hear any immediate up-to-date news from the search team, we'll just send them our best holiday wishes for fruitful searching.

Don't know about you, but I'm asking Santa for 5 minutes of high-resolution video of a pair of courting ivorybills at a nest cavity.