James Stallings and Mark Bonta:
Current research on the Ivory-billed Woodpecker in northwestern Mississippi
Jim is an undergraduate in the Division of Social Sciences at Delta State University. He became involved in Ivory-billed research as part of a field course in Spring 2008 (see The Ivory-billed Woodpecker: Environmental history and recovery potential in the Yazoo-Mississippi Delta, Results of exploratory research, Dec. 2007 – Mar. 2008). His field surveys were featured in a local newspaper and later linked to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s ‘Ivory-billed in the News’ webpage (‘Stallings combing the Delta for the Ivory-billed Woodpecker’). He was in contact with Cornell researchers, who encouraged him to continue his fieldwork during the next search season.
In Fall 2008 his project advisor, Dr. Bonta, received a small grant for Stallings’ and his proposal to survey ten sites in the Mississippi Delta from Nov 2008- Feb 2009. Stallings is also generously supported by the US Office of Veterans Affairs and has been able to acquire the necessary hardware for this extended class project.
Bonta has been researching the environmental history of Ivory-billed WPs in the area since 2006: see ‘Ivory-billed Woodpeckers in Bolivar Co., Mississippi.’
CONTROVERSY / POSITION
We became intrigued by the possibility of this species’ survival back in the flurry of initial activity in 2005 that involved the nearby White River / Cache River /Bayou DeView forest corridor in Arkansas. We have since followed up on several local reports, but without any hard evidence. We are officially ‘agnostic’ with regards to the rediscovery, and find the entire phenomenon intriguing in and of itself. For example, regardless of the validity of the much-discussed evidence provided from Arkansas, we find the literature on the environmental history of the species quite revealing, particularly inasmuch as it shows the Delta to have harbored one of the last viable confirmed populations, contemporary with the population Tanner studied in the Tensas region of northeastern Louisiana. We are also intrigued by the human element in the stories of Ivory-billed Woodpeckers past and present; for more on this consult Michael Steinberg’s new book, Stalking the Ghost Bird: The Elusive Ivory-billed Woodpecker in Louisiana.
Our credentials: Jim is a native of the Delta and his contacts within and understanding of local culture run wide and deep. Mark is an expert on Honduran avifauna and has published widely on ‘ornithogeographical’ topics. During his 1990s work surveying avifauna in Honduras he discovered several new species for the country and spurred the rediscovery and expanded knowledge of many more. See the Birding Honduras website. He also became extremely familiar with the Pale-billed Woodpecker, a species in the same genus as the IBWP (and he grew up in a Pennsylvania woods filled with Pileated Woodpeckers).
Our current goals: Even the absence of evidence this year will constitute evidence, if only by allowing future search teams to de-prioritize northwestern Mississippi. As it is, virtually none of the many areas of possible habitat have been surveyed at all—neither outside the mainline levee along the River, nor inside it at the numerous wildlife refuges and other sites. Our searches will use an established protocol for effective and scientifically valid/repeatable data gathering, based on our analysis of the successes and failures of search methods used by other teams. It will be neither random nor haphazard, but will focus instead on areas within the 10 target sites that we estimate contain the highest concentration of the species’ recognized food source. Transects will be run in all areas in the early part of the season; any promising evidence will merit repeat visits. We note that all these areas are of easy access for us (1 hour or less distance). We will be equipped with sound equipment as well as digiscoping capacity. Teams will consist of two or three members – DSU undergraduates for Bonta’s Fall 2008 Physical Geography course will be receiving credit for accompanying us.
In addition to this search effort, we will continue to search historical archives, and we will also put an announcement out in area papers soliciting information.
UPDATE 11-27-2008
DSU has issued a press release to Mississippi media detailing our work, featuring the new Mississippi Delta Ivory-billed Woodpecker Hotline: 662-457-1017. Several newspapers have picked up the story, and the Greenwood Commonwealth has an update on our search in their 11-28-2008 issue. Several people have volunteered for our search team as a result.
Our search season began on Saturday, November 22 with a visit to Morgan Brake National Wildlife Refuge; Nov. 24 in Hillside National Wildlife Refuge; Nov. 25 in Panther Swamp National Wildlife Refuge. We have also followed up on a well-documented report in Louisiana. On Dec. 4, 2008 we will go to Arkansas for a day of Nature Conservancy/Cornell Lab-coordinated IBWP search season preparation. Following Christmas Bird Count on Dec. 15 we will will continue our local preliminary searching. Our goal is to survey all ten proposed areas before the beginning of the Spring semester in January, after which we will have a much better idea what specific spots warrant return visits closer to and during IBWP nesting season (Feb-Apr). Right now we are benefittng from areas' accessibility, as water levels are low in target habitats (oak-sweetgum flats).
Areas remaining in preliminary survey period: Yazoo NWR; Delta National Forest; Malmaison Wildlife Management Area; Great River Road State Park; 3 areas on private land.
The southeastern side of the Delta was the subject of several reports and searches in the 1970s and 1980s. Woodpecker presence there was possibility related to tree die-off from the 1973 flood and from subsequent flood control projects such as levee construction at Hillside NWR. Morgan Brake, though with more forest than Tallahatchie NWR or Matthew's Brake NWR to its north, does not appear to contain adequate IBWP habitat. It does, however, maintain a solid and road-free corridor connecting bald-cypress-tupelo swamp to hillside loess bluff in a compact but very biodiverse transition zone about a mile wide.
Hillside NWR and Panther Swamp NWR, on the other hand, are quite promising for several reasons. We are currently constructing a model of potential IBWP nesting territory with a ratings scale for several different factors, based on Tanner's description of virgin Tensas as well as our own reconstruction of virgin Dahomey (Allan Grey Woods) and virgin Great River Road State Park (before it was a park, of course), three lower Mississippi Valley sites known to have hosted nesting populations that should be good analogues. When we complete the model we will present it here.
Hillside contains about 12,000 acres of contiguous forest and has a direct connection to pine forest on neighboring bluffs, something Jerome Jackson has suggested is important for foraging birds (J. Jackson, In Search of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker, 2006, Smithsonian). Hillside contains at most a couple thousand acres of older, maturing oak forest with substantial cottonwood, sycamore, hackberry, and other elements--enough for a couple of nesting pairs. Forest in one spot we examined appeared to be about 80 years old with a canopy of over 75 feet and dbh of 2.5 to 4 feet. The Alligator Slough area also appears promising--though small, it is completely protected from hunting and contains second-growth baldcypress with a scattering of giant examples. However, we should note that we do not favor a model of IBWP preference for baldcypress-tupelo per se.
Panther Swamp has great potential for Ivory-billed presence in nesting season. It should be surveyed in careful detail, as it contains 20,000 acres of forest, some of 75-foot plus canopy with 2.5' to 4' dbh, a large amount of sweetgum, and in some areas, particularly on the southeast side, an abundant quantity of dead and dying trees. We hiked 12 miles in PS and in all my experience I have never heard and seen the quantity of woodpeckers--all seven common local species--that we noted there. Pileateds were abundant, and we noted a Pileated double-knock, which is a result of its stopping before doing a full drum. We had previously identified and listened to it. (We also noted viable double-knocks in Louisiana from trees rubbing together).
Panther Swamp is easily accessible from two parallel levee roads that run along the Will Whittington Auxiliary Channel (connecting Yazoo and Big Sunflower rivers). There are a fair quantity of refuge roads that are underwater in flooding--for example, last Spring, when flood levels in the bottomland forests reached 7.5 feet according to our measurements of moss lines on trees. Otherwise, the roads provide for access and are blocked to vehicles; ATVs are only allowed during limited hunting periods. Other than a construction project inside the refuge, there was very little ambient noise from trucks, barking dogs, and other common Delta disruptions--the heart of the refuge is several miles from the outside world. The refuge is also located just 2 miles west of the 'hills' (loess bluff area, heavily forested) and three miles east of Delta National Forest with its 60,000 acres of forest.
EVIDENCE: At this point we are constructing a model for circumstantial evidence, as we take a conservative approach to actual physical evidence. Neither Hillside nor Panther Swamp have had recent reports, but this is not significant as we don't believe anyone has been looking for them there and we're unclear how many birders visit Panther Swamp in the first place; reports on the east side of the Delta have never been of nesting pairs in any case. We tend to keep in mind the fact that the prime areas for nesting sites are in forests that are essentially ignored by human beings, including even the most intrepid turkey hunters, if they are under water -- and it just so happens that Feb - Apr is the time of high water in the Delta, when rivers and streams back up into many places, particularly including Panther Swamp. This is exacerbated by heavy beaver activity; it is an endless task to control beaver populations (though their overpopulation does contribute to the percentage of dead and dying trees).
Double-knock. Single double knocks have no validity in our opinion; repeated double knocks do. From what we have read and heard, the following produce double knocks: Pileated Woodpecker; trees rubbing together; certain gunshots; certain dog barks; distant trucks going over bridges.
Calls. These can be imitated by Blue Jays and resemble nuthatches; the latter are not found in most of the Delta. While the extant double-knock recording is of the Pale-billed Woodpecker, there are extant IBWP recorded calls for rapid comparison in the field.
Bark scaling. Tanner reports extensive scaling in active IBWP areas, but there is substantial overlap with what Pileateds will do, though supposedly IBWP scale more recently dead trees.
Holes. IBWP excavations are supposedly somewhat larger than Pileated holes; the difference is hard to ascertain when holes are at 45 or 60 feet; we have seen and photographed numerous large holes, some apparently from this year.
Our approach is to ascertain what areas have highest potential for IBWPS; physical evidence on top of that would further strengthen the case. Proof consists in procuring photos of the bird.