Download or read book In Search of the Ivory Billed Woodpecker written by Jerome A. Jackson and published by Harper Perennial. This book was released on 2006-05-09 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Search of the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker is a complete natural history of one of the most exciting and rare birds in the world. Noted ornithologist Jerome A. Jackson takes the reader on his fantastic and personal quest, providing detailed insights into the bird's lifestyle, habitat, and cultural significance, examining its iconic status from the late 1800s to the present in advertising, conservation, and lore. As he relates searches for the bird by John James Audubon, Alexander Wilson, and others, Jackson offers anecdotal tales illuminating the methods of early naturalists, including how one captive ivory-bill destroyed a naturalist's hotel room in a desperate attempt to escape. Jackson's search for one of the few remaining ivory-bills takes him across the United States and into Cuba. A new epilogue disputes the putative rediscovery of the bird in April 2005.

Download or read book The Ivory Billed Woodpecker written by James T. Tanner and published by Courier Corporation. This book was released on 2012-10-10 with total page 145 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: All who seek this elusive bird rely on this 1942 profile of the species' characteristics and habits including its original distribution patterns; history of its disappearance; feeding, nesting, breeding habits. 20 halftones, 17 tables, 22 other illustrations.

Download or read book Ivorybill Hunters written by Geoffrey Edward Hill and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The last documented sighting of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker--one of the rarest and most intriguing animals in the world--was noted over 50 years ago. Long thought to be extinct, the 2005 announcement of a sighting in Arkansas sparked tremendous enthusiasm and hope that this species could yetbe saved. But the subsequent failure of a massive search to relocate Ivorybills in Arkansas made hope for the species' revival short-lived. Here, noted ornithologist Geoffrey Hill tells the story of how he and two of his colleagues stumbled upon what may be a breeding population of Ivory-billed Woodpeckers in the swamps of northern Florida. He relates their laborious attempts to document irrefutable evidence for the existence ofthis shy, elusive bird following the failure of a much larger research team to definitively prove the bird's existence. Hill tells of his travails both in and out of the vast swamp wilderness, pulling back the curtain to reveal the little-seen political maneuvering that is part of all modern science. He explains how he and his group decided who to exclude or include as their findings came in, and why they feltthe need to keep their search a secret. Hill returns repeatedly to how expectations can guide observations, and how tempting it is to oversell evidence in the face of the struggle between an overwhelming desire to find the bird and the need to retain integrity and objectivity. Written like a good detective story, Ivorybill Hunters also delves into the science behind the rediscovery of a species, explaining how professional ornithologists follow up on a sight record of a rare bird, and how this differs from the public's perception of how scientists actually work. Hillnotes the growing role of amateurs in documenting bird activity and discusses how the community of birders and nature lovers can see, enjoy, and help preserve these birds. Ivorybill Hunters will prove a fascinating read for those with an interest in natural history, adventure, environmental conservation, and science, as well as the more than forty-six million Americans who now call themselves birdwatchers.

Download or read book Ghost Birds written by Stephen Lyn Bales and published by Univ. of Tennessee Press. This book was released on 2010-10-21 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Everyone who is interested in the ivory-billed woodpecker will want to read this book—from scientists who wish to examine the data from all the places Tanner explored to the average person who just wants to read a compelling story.” —Tim Gallagher, author of The Grail Bird: The Rediscovery of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker In 1935 naturalist James T. Tanner was a twenty-one-year-old graduate student when he saw his first ivory-billed woodpecker, one of America’s Istudent when he saw his first ivory-billed woodpecker, one of America’s rarest birds, in a remote swamp in northern Louisiana. At the time, he rarest birds, in a remote swamp in northern Louisiana. At the time, he was part of an ambitious expedition traveling across the country to record and photograph as many avian species as possible, a trip organized by Dr. Arthur Allen, founder of the famed Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Two years later, Tanner hit the road again, this time by himself and in search of only one species—that ever-elusive ivory-bill. Sponsored by Cornell and the Audubon Society, Jim Tanner’s work would result in some of the most extensive field research ever conducted on the magnificent woodpecker. Drawing on Tanner’s personal journals and written with the cooperation of his widow, Nancy, Ghost Birds recounts, in fascinating detail, the scientist’s dogged quest for the ivory-bill as he chased down leads in eight southern states. With Stephen Lyn Bales as our guide, we experience the same awe and excitement that Tanner felt when he returned to the Louisiana wetland he had visited earlier and was able to observe and document several of the “ghost birds”—including a nestling that he handled, banded, and photographed at close range. Investigating the ivory-bill was particularly urgent because it was a fast-vanishing species, the victim of indiscriminant specimen hunting and widespread logging that was destroying its habitat. As sightings became rarer and rarer in the decades following Tanner’s remarkable research, the bird was feared to have become extinct. Since 2005, reports of sightings in Arkansas and Florida made headlines and have given new hope to ornithologists and bird lovers, although extensive subsequent investigations have yet to produce definitive confirmation. Before he died in 1991, Jim Tanner himself had come to believe that the majestic woodpeckers were probably gone forever, but he remained hopeful that someone would prove him wrong. This book fully captures Tanner’s determined spirit as he tracked down what was then, as now, one of ornithology’s true Holy Grails. STEPHEN LYN BALES is a naturalist at the Ijams Nature Center in Knoxville, Tennessee. He is the author of Natural Histories, published by UT Press in 2007.

Download or read book Stalking the Ghost Bird written by Michael K. Steinberg and published by LSU Press. This book was released on 2008-03 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Unseen for more than sixty years and thought to be extinct, interest in the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker exploded in 2004 when two birders reported capturing the bird on film while searching a bottomland forest in Arkansas. STAKING THE GHOST BIRD examines the lengthy debate over the ivory-bill's status by examining the reported sightings and extensive efforts to find the rare bird in Louisiana. In this absorbing study, author Steinberg turns his lifelong interest in the majestic ivory-billed woodpecker into a tale that encapsulates both the mystery and intrigue surrounding the legendary bird.

Download or read book Imperial Dreams written by Tim Gallagher and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2013-04-16 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A decade ago, Tim Gallagher was one of the rediscoverers of the legendary ivory-billed woodpecker, which most scientists believed had been extinct for more than half a century—now Gallagher once again hits the trail, journeying deep into Mexico’s savagely beautiful Sierra Madre Occidental, home to rich wildlife, as well as to Mexican drug cartels, in a perilous quest to locate the most elusive bird in the world—the imperial woodpecker. The imperial woodpecker’s trumpetlike calls and distinctive hammering on massive pines once echoed through the high forests. Two feet tall, with deep black plumage, a brilliant snow-white shield on its back, and a crimson crest, the imperial woodpecker had largely disappeared fifty years ago, though reports persist of the bird still flying through remote mountain stands. In an attempt to find and protect the imperial woodpecker in its last habitat, Gallagher is guided by a map of sightings of this natural treasure of the Sierra Madre, bestowed on him by a friend on his deathbed. Charged with continuing the quest of a line of distinguished naturalists, including the great Aldo Leopold, Gallagher treks through this mysterious, historically untamed and untamable territory. Here, where an ancient petroglyph of the imperial can still be found, Geronimo led Apaches in their last stand, William Randolph Hearst held a storied million-acre ranch, and Pancho Villa once roamed, today ruthless drug lords terrorize residents and steal and strip the land. Gallagher’s passionate quest takes a harrowing turn as he encounters armed drug traffickers, burning houses, and fleeing villagers. His mission becomes a life-and-death drama that will keep armchair adventurers enthralled as he chases truth in the most dangerous of habitats.

Download or read book The Race to Save the Lord God Bird written by Phillip Hoose and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR). This book was released on 2014-08-26 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The tragedy of extinction is explained through the dramatic story of a legendary bird, the Ivory-billed Woodpecker, and of those who tried to possess it, paint it, shoot it, sell it, and, in a last-ditch effort, save it. A powerful saga that sweeps through two hundred years of history, it introduces artists like John James Audubon, bird collectors like William Brewster, and finally a new breed of scientist in Cornell's Arthur A. "Doc" Allen and his young ornithology student, James Tanner, whose quest to save the Ivory-bill culminates in one of the first great conservation showdowns in U.S. history, an early round in what is now a worldwide effort to save species. As hope for the Ivory-bill fades in the United States, the bird is last spotted in Cuba in 1987, and Cuban scientists join in the race to save it. All this, plus Mr. Hoose's wonderful story-telling skills, comes together to give us what David Allen Sibley, author of The Sibley Guide to Birds calls "the most thorough and readable account to date of the personalities, fashions, economics, and politics that combined to bring about the demise of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker." The Race to Save the Lord God Bird is the winner of the 2005 Boston Globe - Horn Book Award for Nonfiction and the 2005 Bank Street - Flora Stieglitz Award.

Download or read book Big Woods Bird written by Terri Roberts Luneau and published by Butler Center for Arkansas Studies. This book was released on 2005-01-30 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Terri Luneau is the wife of David Luneau, who first captured the Ivory-Bill woodpecker on videotape in April 2004. This beautifully illustrated children's book tells the story of the woodpecker and its habitat in verse. Enter the magical but very real word of the Big Woods of eastern Arkansas and discover what it is like to roam the remote reaches of a swamp forest in search of the elusive woodpecker. Lesson plans are available for teachers at www.butlercenter.org.

Download or read book Hope Is the Thing With Feathers written by Christopher Cokinos and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2009-05-14 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A prizewinning poet and nature writer weaves together natural history, biology, sociology, and personal narrative to tell the story of the lives, habitats, and deaths of six extinct bird species.

Download or read book The Bark of the Bog Owl written by Jonathan Rogers and published by B&H Publishing Group. This book was released on 2004 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this fantasy/allegory, Rogers retells the life of biblical character King David.

Download or read book The Life List of Adrian Mandrick written by Chris White and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2018-04-17 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “With a birder’s eye for detail, White takes us on [Adrian Mandrick’s] painful, near death descent…[her] life-affirming conclusion reminds us that endangered species aren’t the only ones that need to change and adapt in order to survive.”—The New York Times Book Review H Is for Hawk meets Grief Is the Thing with Feathers in this evocative debut novel about a pill-popping anesthesiologist and avid birder who embarks on a quest to find one of the world’s rarest species, allowing nothing to get in his way—until he’s forced to confront his obsessions and what they’ve cost him. Adrian Mandrick seems to have his life in perfect order with an excellent job in a Colorado hospital, a wife and two young children he loves deeply, and a serious passion for birding. His life list comprises 863 species correctly identified and cataloged—it is, in fact, the third longest list in the North American region. But Adrian holds dark secrets about his childhood—secrets that threaten to consume him after he’s contacted by his estranged mother, and subsequently relapses into an addiction to painkillers. In the midst of his downward spiral, the legendary birder with the region’s second-longest life list dies suddenly, and Adrian receives an anonymous tip that could propel him to the very top: the extremely rare Ivory-billed Woodpecker, spotted deep in the swamplands of Florida’s Panhandle. Combining sharp, elegant prose with environmental adventure, The Life List of Adrian Mandrick is a poignant, engaging story that heralds the arrival of a new literary talent.

Download or read book Skink No Surrender written by Carl Hiaasen and published by Knopf Books for Young Readers. This book was released on 2014-09-23 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Richard's cousin is missing, and his best hope of finding her rests with the wily, one-eyed, ex-governor of Florida. Carl Hiaasen introduces his iconic character Skink to a younger audience in this nail-biting adventure! A National Book Award Longlist Selection Classic Malley: her parents are about to ship her off to boarding school, so she takes off with some guy she met online... Poor Richard: he's less of a rebel than Malley, and a lot less trusting. He knows his cousin is in trouble before she does. Wild Skink: he's a ragged, one-eyed, ex-governor of Florida, and enough of a renegade to think he can track Malley down. With Richard riding shotgun, this unlikely pair scour the state, undaunted by blinding storms, crazed pigs, flying bullets, and giant gators. In Carl Hiaasen's outrageous, hilarious, and wildly dangerous state of Florida, there are a million places an outlaw might stash a teenage girl. A million unpleasant ways to die. And two who will risk everything to rescue a friend . . . and to, hopefully, exact a bit of swamp justice.

Download or read book The Lord God Bird written by Tom Gallant and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Flies through the imagination with a clear, unapologetic masculinity and lands with great tenderness in the human heart."--Kent Stetson

Download or read book Flock Together written by B.J. Hollars and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2017-02-01 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After stumbling upon a book of photographs depicting extinct animals, B.J. Hollars became fascinated by the creatures that are no longer with us; specifically, extinct North American birds. How, he wondered, could we preserve so beautifully on film what we’ve failed to preserve in life? And so begins his yearlong journey to find out, one that leads him from bogs to art museums, from archives to Christmas Counts, until he at last comes as close to extinct birds as he ever will during a behind-the-scenes visit at the Chicago Field Museum. Heartbroken by the birds we’ve lost, Hollars takes refuge in those that remain. Armed with binoculars, a field guide, and knowledgeable friends, he begins his transition from budding birder to environmentally conscious citizen, a first step on a longer journey toward understanding the true tragedy of a bird’s song silenced forever. Told with charm and wit, Flock Together is a remarkable memoir that shows how “knowing” the natural world—even just a small part—illuminates what it means to be a global citizen and how only by embracing our ecological responsibilities do we ever become fully human. A moving elegy to birds we’ve lost, Hollars’s exploration of what we can learn from extinct species will resonate in the minds of readers long beyond the final page. Purchase the audio edition. Watch a book trailer for Hollars’s newest book, Midwestern Strange.

Download or read book Pileated Woodpeckers written by Rebecca Sabelko and published by Bellwether Media. This book was released on 2019-08-01 with total page 24 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It’s hammer time! Pileated woodpeckers are some of the largest woodpeckers in North America. These striking birds drill holes a foot high and can even break trees in half with their powerful beaks. Jam-packed with facts, this book will captivate budding bird watchers.

Download or read book The American Bird Conservancy Guide to Bird Conservation written by Daniel J. Lebbin and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2010-10-15 with total page 457 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Whether we live in cities, in the suburbs, or in the country, birds are ubiquitous features of daily life, so much so that we often take them for granted. But even the casual observer is aware that birds don’t fill our skies in the number they once did. That awareness has spawned conservation action that has led to notable successes, including the recovery of some of the nation’s most emblematic species, such as the Bald Eagle, Brown Pelican, Whooping Crane, and Peregrine Falcon. Despite this, a third of all American bird species are in trouble—in many cases, they’re in imminent danger of extinction. The most authoritative account ever published of the threats these species face, The American Bird Conservancy Guide to Bird Conservation will be the definitive book on the subject. The Guide presents for the first time anywhere a classification system and threat analysis for bird habitats in the United States, the most thorough and scientifically credible assessment of threats to birds published to date, as well as a new list of birds of conservation concern. Filled with beautiful color illustrations and original range maps, the Guide is a timely, important, and inspiring reference for birders and anyone else interested in conserving North America’s avian fauna. But this book is far more than another shout of crisis. The Guide also lays out a concrete and achievable plan of long-term action to safeguard our country’s rich bird life. Ultimately, it is an argument for hope. Whether you spend your early weekend mornings crouched in silence with binoculars in hand, hoping to check another species off your list, or you’ve never given much thought to bird conservation, you’ll appreciate the visual power and intellectual scope of these pages.

Download or read book The Ivory billed Woodpecker written by Guy G Luneau and published by Independently Published. This book was released on 2021-08-07 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Ivory-billed Woodpecker, Campephilus principalis, survives on the North American continent in our modern era, two-plus decades into the 21st century. Its survival is a natural history miracle. The ivorybill was considered by many to have gone extinct on the North American continent as far back as the early 1900's. Yet it was "rediscovered". After a short while, many lost hope and again labeled it extinct. It was rediscovered again. Sightings of the species continued on through the decades. And encounters continue up into the present day, two-plus decades into the 21st century. How can this be? How can a large bird species, as large as a Wood Duck, continue surviving on the North American continent while living its life "under the radar" of the 330 million people residing in the USA in the 2020 A.D. time frame? This book, The Ivory-billed Woodpecker: Taunting Extinction, offers explanations of the various pathways by which this can occur -- and indeed it has occurred. The modern-day Ivory-billed Woodpecker population is no doubt low in number. But forest square mileage is much larger today, and the average age of the trees in those forests is much older today, in the eastern USA than it was in the mid 1900's when numerous species of forest animals' populations dipped to substantially reduced numbers, including such now-abundant animals as Whitetail Deer, Wild Turkey, Wood Duck, and Black Bear to name a few. Combining the ivorybill's low, but likely increasing, population with it being a quiet, skittish-of-man, retiring, long-distance-traveling, masterfully-wily, master-of-its-environment bird species, along with a modern-day humanity who largely does not spend much time in deep forest and swamp habitats, we then have the factors of the recipe - the equation - that permits the ivorybill to elude detection by humans.