Thursday, September 11, 2008


April 12th. As Bobby and Jim Carpenter, CEO of Wild Birds Unlimited traveled deep in the Bayou in Arkansas, they spied a large black and white bird flying in the distance. Both Bobby and Jim found the bird interesting in its speed, wing beat frequency and it flight pattern. While the bird flew like other Ivory-bills that Bobby has seen in powered flight it was simply too far away to say it was an Ivory-bill. But just in case, Bobby decided to deploy cameras in the area.

The next day, Jim and Wild Birds chief biologist John Schaust were in the same area. Both Jim and John heard and recorded more than fifty minutes of “kent” like calls.

Bobby’s cameras have now recorded more than 300,000 images in the area, but not all of the images have been reviewed. On September 6th Bobby made a trip to the swamp to retrieve the cameras for general maintenance. When he arrived at the deployment site he heard a distinct Ivory-bill like double-knock about 800 plus feet away. Bobby is anxious to finish review of the images already produced and eager to get the cameras back out in the swamp.

4 comments:

  1. Anonymous11:07 AM

    I greatly admire Bobby's perseverance. Please let him know that, as a recent retiree, I can assist him in Arkansas this winter for periods of a week at a time. I searched for Cornell and am interested in getting back up there. If interested he should email me at charlesandpattie1@cox.net.

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  2. Anonymous6:21 AM

    Hi Norma,
    It was great to talk to you yesterday! We're excited to know about your blog site. It's awesome to see the daily progress. We can't wait until the day we log on and read about the next sighting! We appreciate Bobby's efforts and we know all his hard work will pay off.

    Sally

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  3. Anonymous4:54 PM

    Dear Anonymous,
    I will pass your e-mail address on to Bobby.

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  4. Anonymous4:56 PM

    Dear Sally
    It's good to get comments. Sometimes I feel I'm talking to myself! I e-mailed a newsletter today. If u are interested in getting it u can e-mail me @

    ivorybill@aol.com

    ReplyDelete