On 2/4/2017 11:16 AM, Bill Whan wrote: > Last time I looked, there were forty or so posts on the IDFrontiers web > site over the past two days about photographic and other evidence for > the continuing presence of living ivory-billed woodpeckers in Louisana > swamps. Readers may or or may not want to mingle with these crowds... > http://digest.sialia.com/?rm=one_list;id=175 . > There seem to be considerable testimony from the old days that this > species could be found in primeval forests throughout eastern North > America, including here. It also seems that photographic > evidence--today's gold standard of verification for living rarities [no > one's going to collect an IBWP!]--was developed for field observers > about the time the last of them were extirpated. There is no > photographic evidence for Ohio that I can find for living IBWP; during > the period when these birds could still be found here, photographs were > in their infancy, when a portrait of a human required him or her to sit > motionless for minutes. > There is archaeological evidence however, that seems to confirm its > presence in Ohio via remains found in Ohio excavations, though some say > these remnants might have been valuable enough to pre-Columbian > Americans to be brought back to Ohio from further south. Certainly, > preserved remains of these birds were impressive enough that prepared > specimens are kept in at least three Ohio museums--all without details > about where they were collected. > You can find internet references to alleged modern photos on the ID > Frontiers site and decide for yourself. Look for older Ohio accounts at > (Hopkins, G. 1804, updated 1862. A Mission to the Indians, from the > Indian Committee of Baltimore Yearly Meeting, to Fort Wayne in 1804, > with an appendix compiled in 1862 by Martha E. Tyson T. Eward Zell, > Philadelphia, also Wetmore 1943b. Evidence for the former occurrence of > the Ivory-billed Woodpecker in Ohio. (Wilson Bulletin 55(1):55), and > Goslin 1943b 1945. Bird remains from an Indian village site in Ohio. > (Wilson Bulletin 57(2):131). > Happy imagining, > Bill Whan ______________________________________________________________________ Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society. Please consider joining our Society, at www.ohiobirds.org/site/membership.php. Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list. You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at: listserv.miamioh.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask]