The Ivory-Billed Woodpecker
Campephilus principalis .... Natural History Facts About the Ivory-billed Woodpecker (adapted from information provided by the Nature Conservancy).
The ivory-billed woodpecker is believed to have ranged through swampy forests along the lower Mississippi valley from Arkansas (where the most recent sightings have been confirmed) to Louisiana, with some 1800s reports in Kentucky, Missouri and Oklahoma. John James Audubon reported ivory-bills as far north as the junction of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers around 1825.
Their brilliant white bills contrasted finely with the black of their general plumage. They were noisy but wary, and they seemed to me to set off the wildness of the swamp as much as any of the beasts they chase.Theodore Roosevelt
1907
- Description of the ivory-billed woodpecker:
Averaging about 20 inches in length, the Ivory-billed is among the world’s largest woodpeckers. Only the imperial woodpecker of Mexico, now thought by many to be extinct, is larger. The ivory-bill is frequently mistaken for the smaller pileated woodpecker. Birders can distinguish the two by the location of the white wing feathers: the full-width white patch in the ivory-bill’s trailing wing feathers (when seen from above) folds to form a white “V” on its back when the bird is perched. Males have a prominent scarlet crest; the female’s crest is black. Both male and female pileated woodpeckers have the red crest.
The Audubon painting above is the ivory-billed. below is the pileated woodpecker. These two prints also illustrate an interesting variation in the printing of Audubon prints... the above print is produced exactly as Audubon painted it. In later printings (seen in the pileated print), the printer added his own embellishments hoping to make the prints more saleable!!- Comparison's between the ivory-bill and the pileated:
Flight: The Ivory-bill is swift and straight. Its stiff wing feathers make it an especially loud flyer. The pileated is slower, with a swooping, nearly silent, flight.
A Nature Conservancy story notes that people who saw the impressive ivory-bill in flight could be forgiven for shouting, “Lord God, what a bird!” — explaining why the ivory-bill is also known as the Lord God Bird.
I personally ran across someone who showed his Grandmother on the Pearl River in Louisiana the painting of the ivory-billed and she knew immediately what it was... "A WOOD TURKEY, and very good eating!"
Ornithologists transcribe the call of the ivory-bill as “kent, kent, kent.” The double-rap... “BAM-bam” of their bills pounding on wood contrasts with the sound of the pileated which consists of a stacato of sound which accelerates and carries great distances in the woods.
- The ivory-bill may live as long as 30 years. It's bill continues to grow from its thick skull throughout its life as it is worn down by continual pounding on trees.
- Habits and habitat:
Ivory-bills are believed to mate for life and share the duties of protecting eggs and feeding their young. The Nature Conservancy believes that a pair of ivory-bills is estimated to need six square miles of uncut forest, roughly 36 times as much territory as pileated woodpeckers require! Ivory-bills make nest holes 40 feet or higher above ground level (usually oval-shaped openings between four and six inches in size, extending 20 inches or more down into the tree). Pileated woodpeckers will excavate huge holes that are much lower in the trees.- Food source of the ivory-billed woodpecker:
Beetle larvae are the primary food source for ivory-bills. As the larvae bores through the bark to feed on the sap wood beneath, ivory-bills will use their elongated beaks to pry bark from the trees and expose the larvae.
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Ivory-bills are usually the first woodpeckers to search out the larvae. Later, other woodpecker species will excavate deeper regions of the dying trees for insects found there. Thus, ivory-bills do not, for the most part, compete for insect food with other woodpeckers, and their territories can overlap.
Click here to see the Los Angeles Times report of the April 28th, 2005, sightings of the Ivory-bill or visit the #1 Mississippi River Birding site on www.greatriver.com
Field Markings of the more Common Pileated Woodpecker:
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