Hope to see any and all on Monday March 23 at OWU for the Delaware County Bird Club meeting. Contact me privately if you want to view the full newsletter. Regards, Darlene Sillick Evening programs of the Delaware County Bird Club are held in room 163 of the Conrades Wetherell Science Center. They begin informally at 7:00 p.m. and the formal meeting begins at 7:30 p.m. Refreshments and beverages are provided prior to the meeting. The Ohio Wesleyan University Museum of Zoology is open to guests and a sample of mystery birds from the museum is available to test your identification skills. Parking is available in the Selby Stadium parking lot across Henry Street from the Science Center or in the lot beside the Science Center on the campus drive. The doors of the building are open until 8:00 p.m. March 23 Peckerwoods in paradise Jack M. Stenger In 2005 a press conference was held in Washington D. C.. at the office of the Department of the Interior. At the conference John Fitzpatrick, Director of the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology, announced the rediscovery of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker. He reported calls and sightings from the swamp forests of the Cache and White rivers in Arkansas. A year later Geoff Hill, an ornithologist at Auburn and a birder since childhood, reported similar evidence from a large tract of swamp forest in the panhandle of Florida. The photographic evidence was open to question, and Jerry Jackson, an ornithologist at Florida International University and expert on woodpeckers including the Ivory-billed Woodpecker, and David Sibley felt the evidence in the photographs was less than conclusive. The auditory evidence, based on double knocks was a bit clearer, but still open to alternative explanations. Fast forward to 2009. In early January Jack Stenger, investigative reporter for the Delaware County Bird Club newsletter and birder since the age of 5, and long-time birding buddies Paul Wharton and Bill Stanley left Cincinnati for a week in the pine swamps of the Florida panhandle. Their purpose? To verify the reports of Dr. Hill and his colleagues. To find and photograph the Ivory-billed Woodpecker. To add another check to Jack's "Life List". They spent the next week in kayaks paddling through miles and miles and miles of pine swamp listening and looking for the Ivory-billed Woodpecker. What did they see? What did they hear? What evidence did they find? Jack will present an illustrated lecture based on his trip into the pine swamps of western Florida. Be sure to come for refreshments, conversation, and the usual dead bird quiz. ______________________________________________________________________ Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society. Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list. Additional discussions can be found in our forums, at www.ohiobirds.org/forum/. You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask]