Author Joins Search for Elusive Woodpecker
When Dr. Michael Steinberg was 11, he was cutting through a coastal pine forest to go fishing while he and his parents were vacationing near Fort Meyers, Fla. As he was walking, he caught sight of three big woodpeckers, two of which seemed to be engaged in some kind of courtship ritual. Already an avid bird watcher, Steinberg stopped and took notice. They might have been the fairly common Pileated woodpeckers. He had seen Pileated woodpeckers before, after all. But these particular woodpeckers were, somehow, different. They were acting differently – Pileated were not known to make single high pitched calls – and they just didn’t look like Pileated woodpeckers. Instead, Steinberg came to believe he had spotted three Ivory-billed woodpeckers. What was so strange about that? Well, they were supposed to be, uh, extinct. But at the time, Steinberg was sure he had seen the ivory-bill. “I did see something,” says Steinberg, assistant professor in New College and the geography department at The University of Alabama, both part of UA’s College of Arts and Sciences. “It was so long ago that I wouldn’t bet my life on it. Those birds were likely Pileateds involved in a courtship ritual, but they sure seemed different. But for a kid, it was a formative moment. My perception of the experience hasn’t changed through time.” That brief encounter in the forest set Steinberg off on a quest to explore why the Ivory-billed Woodpecker has inspired so much controversy and fascination over the past 60 years. The culmination of his work, “Stalking the Ghost Bird: The Elusive Ivory-billed Woodpecker in Louisiana,” published in 2008 by Louisiana State University Press. In the book, Steinberg, who earned his doctorate at LSU, gives a journalistic account of the lore and legend of the ivory-bill. He also investigates sightings of the ivory-bill, talks to people who believe that the ivory-bill is extinct and those who swear it survives, and chronicles his own search for the bird.
In case you were going to look for one yourself, the Ivory-billed Woodpecker stands about 18 to 20 inches tall, has a wingspan of 30 to 31 inches and weighs 16 to 20 ounces, according to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology Web site. The largest woodpecker north of Mexico, the bird has “a jet black body with large white patches on the wings.” The big problem with keeping track of the bird was that its habitat mainly was in dense bottomland forests and swamplands of the South – not very accessible for bird-watchers or researchers. “According to the records, bottomland forests were their primary habitat,” says Steinberg. “One of their main food items were these beetle grubs that live under the bark of dead and dying trees. Beetles aren’t exclusively in bottomland forests, but they’re often found in bottomland forests.” A nest of Ivory-billed lore can be found in Southern culture, Steinberg notes in an article called “Bottomland Ghost: Southern Encounters and Obsessions With the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker,” published in Southern Cultures magazine. Nobel Prize author William Faulkner mentions the bird in his classic short novel “The Bear,” and the bird gained such nicknames as the Good God Bird (as in, “Good God, look at that bird!”) and the Forest Turkey (yes, people ate it). In his book, Steinberg interviews bird experts, hunters, fishermen and other interested parties who are convinced they at one time saw or heard an Ivory-billed someplace out in the swamps. These sightings had continued throughout the second half of the 20th century, although nobody could come up with conclusive evidence. He also talks to a range of skeptics who contend that those ivory-bill sightings are illusory – that this particular kind of woodpecker has long since gone the way of the Dodo. When Steinberg started his book, no official Ivory-billed sighting had occurred since 1944. “I didn’t set out to prove or disprove whether the bird existed or not,” says Steinberg, who has a wooden woodpecker door-knocker outside his office in UA’s Carmichael Hall. “Sure, I’d accept it if there was definitive proof, but I didn’t expect to find definitive proof. Why were people, particularly in the South, so fascinated with this bird? Why do these reports keep filtering in? Reports of passenger pigeons don’t keep filtering in.”
Then came 2005. In the middle of Steinberg’s research, a group of ornithological researchers out of Cornell working in the wilds of Arkansas poked a big hole in the extinction theory – they shot a short video clip that many experts, including Steinberg, believe shows a genuine Ivory-billed Woodpecker. “It’s such a brief film clip,” Steinberg says. “It’s not the clearest film clip, but having seen it many, many times, I’m convinced it is an Ivory-billed Woodpecker.” So Steinberg had to go back and re-interview a bunch of people with this headline-grabbing discovery. What he found was that although some skeptics were won over, others still insist that the video shows a bird of a different feather. “For the skeptics, the bar keeps getting raised,” he says. “OK there’s a brief video clip – well, that’s not really an ivory-bill. Then there are these (recordings of) calls – well, those aren’t really ivory-bills. Until we get a dead ivory-bill, until we get a specimen, I’m not sure some of these people are going to believe what other researchers have seen or heard.” Steinberg doesn’t advocate collecting a specimen, of course, but more concrete evidence would be helpful. Since 2005, researchers have been combing the backcountry of Arkansas for follow-up sightings, but none has occurred. Steinberg himself recently spent a week with researchers in South Carolina seeking the shy bird, but no avail. The terrain remains inhospitable to bird-watchers and researchers– visibility is low, and there are too many nooks and crannies where the woodpeckers may be able to nest beneath human notice. “You’re talking about a very difficult, impenetrable environment,” he says. “You might see a flash of something, you might see a bird for a couple of seconds, and that’s it. When I’ve been in these areas, you can’t see five feet in front to you. It’s a difficult, confusing environment. It’s very monotonous in many ways. Unless you find a nesting cavity, I’m not sure we’re ever going to have these great photographs that people expect.”
Hunters, fishermen and landowners who know the backcountry swamps report seeing the woodpeckers, but some are reluctant to come forward, Steinberg says, fearing the U.S. government will slap endangered-species restrictions on their areas. And the scientific community often is reluctant to take their claims seriously. “There are hunters and fishermen who say, ‘I know the birds of the swamp, this isn’t a bird I’ve ever seen before,’” Steinberg says. “I think the scientific community has been too quick to dismiss these reports until fairly recently.” So where do we go from here? Steinberg thinks researchers should continue to comb the swamps and forests for the Ivory-billed throughout the Southeast. “I think there are a few, very small populations,” he says. “We’re getting good reports — call reporting from the Florida Panhandle, good reports from Congaree Swamp in South Carolina and of course Arkansas and Louisiana. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were a handful of birds in these areas. I think there’s a small breeding population — I don’t think these are 60-year old birds.” And, eventually, we may even get an undisputed photo or video, which will finally fulfill Steinberg’s childhood vision, or sighting, or whatever you call it, as well as the efforts of dozens of researchers for whom hope is the thing with feathers – Ivory-billed Woodpecker feathers. “Some of the enthusiasm has waned, given that photos or better video haven’t come out of Arkansas,” Steinberg says. “I think people were putting all their eggs in the Arkansas basket so to speak. So I think there’s been disappointment about that. But I’m still convinced that there will be a good photo or video clip come out of Arkansas or Louisiana or South Carolina.” IF YOU SEE AN IVORY-BILLED WOODPECKER: Drop Dr. Michael Steinberg a line immediately (that is, if the swamp has WiFi). He may be reached at mksteinberg@as.ua.edu or 107 Carmichael Hall, Box 870229, The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, Alabama 35487-0229, or 205/348-0349. Further Reading