Wow. Where to begin? This reminds me of a story I heard about the 
gull-billed tern that was located and confirmed by a prominent southwestern 
Ohio birder in the early 1980s at Acton Lake during a Cincinnati Bird Club 
field trip. Surely everyone has heard of the gull-billed tern at Acton Lake? 
The gentleman happened to be leading the field trip this day, and while the 
group was scanning through a few common and Caspian terns near the dam, he 
exclaimed "Gull-billed tern!" Everyone looked and looked, but nobody could 
find the bird the leader *insisted* was out there flying lazy circles over 
Acton Lake. Finally he gave up and started grumbling "why can't you all see 
what I see?"

I think a big problem in birding (or in, say, running a country or leading 
an organization such as FEMA, for example . . . but I digress) is that we 
sometimes convince ourselves that because we might know a lot about 
something we therefore know everything about that something, so we're always 
right and never wrong. "I've seen photos of ivory-billed woodpeckers and 
pictures of ivory-billed woodpeckers, therefore I'm right about this 
sighting because the bird looked just like they do in the books. Well, 
almost." Think how many times people say they have red-headed woodpeckers in 
their backyards. "Looks just like they do in my field guide!" Then you show 
them a photo of a red-bellied woodpecker. "Yup. That's the bird my backyard. 
A red-headed woodpecker." There's a lot of room for error when flipping back 
and forth between the pages in a book and the "pages" in one's memory. 
What's the verse from Paul Simon's "Kodachrome" about his former 
girlfriends?

"If you took all the girls I knew When I was single
And brought them all together for one night
I know they'd never match my sweet imagination
And everything looks worse in black and white."

I can think of another birder whose old field notes I came upon last year. 
Included were crude sketches of what were obviously turkey vultures, 
carefully labeled "red-shouldered hawks," and this hilarious description of 
a bird seen on January 1 in Hamilton: "rich, rufous brown-colored bird, 
about the size of a robin, with a long tail and a long curved bill. The eyes 
were bright yellow, and the breast was heavily spotted with black dots. The 
bird was actively foraging in the leaf litter by pushing around leaves and 
debris with its feet. I was thrilled to have finally seen the bird that 
Thoreau wrote of in Walden: THE WOOD THRUSH!!" Those field notes are mine, 
and to make matters worse, I was identifying those birds in the field *with 
a Peterson field guide!* Not to blame the master, though: the fault all was 
in the eyes of the beholder of the book and the birds.

So this fellow and his mom saw the first bird in 1970 and he saw another in 
1978. I'm curious that he doesn't recall the exact date of either sighting. 
Nonetheless, he's pretty much got all the ID points together, with a few 
notable exceptions: a gray (pileated-like bill) rather than an "ivory" bill. 
That presents an issue when claiming an ivory-billed woodpecker. But that's 
not really an issue because, as he modestly explains, "I would say without a 
doubt that I am 100% accurate in my identification. I may not recall some of 
the details exactly, but there is no doubt whatsoever that both these birds 
were Ivory-bills. I have not even the slightest 1% of doubt, if I did, I 
would never have put this much effort into recording my sightings."

He stresses that he has no doubts a number of times on the webpage--bolded 
and in italics.But unfortunately when it comes proving that these 
woodpeckers were ivory-billed and not pileateds, it takes something more 
than the rhetorical approach you find in the gospels of the New Testament. 
"Blessed are those who have not seen, yet still believe," indeed. I'm not 
knocking The Book, mind you. and Jesus is alright with me, as the song goes, 
but an ivory-billed woodpecker is neither religion nor mesiah, and you can't 
blame folks for doubting something that has been recreated thirty some years 
after the event, even if the illustrations are pretty darn good and the 
writeup done in all the best intentions.

I'm not criticizing the gentleman who created the web page and the excellent 
illustrations, but the claim is rather fantastic to begin with--though of 
course, possible at some level, I suppose. But the complete lack of self 
consciousness, the utter lack of humility, the certainty of being "100% 
accurate" as he says, are to me all blind alleys that birders would do well 
to avoid. There's always the chance to be wrong when dealing with birds in 
the field or in photographs. I seem to recall confusing a hatch-year prairie 
warbler with a blackburnian warbler a few weeks back, and that's just *one* 
of the mistakes I've made recently while looking at birds and there are many 
more to be made, no doubt. Birders make mistakes, and we have to be aware of 
the many ways in which we can and do make mistakes, and be careful about how 
we report what we see.

Cornell had a whole team of researchers mucking around the swamps of 
Arkansas; they produced a few eyewitness accounts, sound recordings, and 
that Sasquatch-quality video. Personally, I believe (hope) that they're on 
to something. Nontheless, there are still many who believe the team's 
conclusions are wrong or that, worse, they are part of a conspiracy or are 
being tricked, which is hilarious to consider for a variety of reasons. It 
really takes a lot to prove something like this--much more than claiming one 
is "100% accurate," very sincere, and obviously talented with pen and brush.

Back to the gull-billed tern of Acton Lake: who's to say the field trip 
leader that day didn't go home and draw a picture-perfect illustration of a 
gull-billed tern flying around the lake, along with copious notes and 
estimations of how far away he was from the bird, what the weather was like, 
etc. Okay. Doesn't prove the bird was there. There's still all sorts of 
variables that have to be explained, and the fact that a bunch of other 
birders standing next to the man saw nothing but Caspian and common terns. 
Still would make an excellent picture, though!

So, no, I think he saw a pileated a little closer than he'd seen one before 
and became excited. Overly excited. "L'ard Gawd!" excited. Then he looked in 
a field guide and . . . abracadabra! IVORY-BILLED WOODPECKER!

He's a darn good artist, though. And those web pages are fun to look at. And 
it's nice to imagine ivory-billed woopeckers in Indiana or Arkansas or 
anywhere.

Take care,
---Mike Busam
West Chester, OH