Ivory-billed Woodpecker by John James Audubon, ca. 1829.
Source: Audubon gallery at Haley and Steele
[dealer in antique prints and maps].
More resources:
- Science magazine's freely available article "Ivory-billed Woodpecker (Campephilus principalis) Persists in Continental North America" [YES!! Information wants to be free!] and supporting online materials.
- Cornell Lab of Ornithology's Birds of America Online for the freely available pages about the Ivory-billed Woodpecker.
- And check out the links on this page and this page too!
- National Public Radio has several reports on the Ivory-billed Woodpecker here, including a "Radio Expedition" from March 2002 about the search for the elusive bird in Louisiana.
- New York Times editorial [with a nearly blasphemous title] "The Lord God Bird."
If I ever drive off the road and have a terrible wreck, it will be because I was distracted by a bird. Yesterday I spotted a wild turkey crossing the road about a block from my home. My son Tim asked "Oooh! What's that? A road-runner?" and I shouted "No! It's a turkey!--a road-running turkey!"
We are planning our annual camping trip. This year we will be heading east and north, in a loop through Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, southern Ohio, Illinois, Missouri, and Kansas. [Depending on how things go, we may go as far as Virginia.] Tim wants to search for diamonds at Crater of Diamonds State Park--and I am going to resist the temptation to flock to the Big Woods with other birders and disturb their habitat. It is not known if there are any breeding populations--but the key to their survival will be preservation of habitat. See this map:
'In the "Big Woods" region of eastern Arkansas, USA, mature or sub-mature bottomland forest covers more than 220,000 ha (red-shaded area), and substantial additional land is being reforested.'
Source: the supporting materials in Science magazine.
I've added a green square to mark the county where we will be hunting for diamonds and other rocks and minerals.
God our security,
who alone can defend us
against the principalities and powers
that rule this present age;
may we trust in no weapons
except the whole armor of faith,
that in dying we may live,
and, having nothing, we may own the world,
through Jesus Christ. AMEN
--Janet Morley, All desires known, 1988
who alone can defend us
against the principalities and powers
that rule this present age;
may we trust in no weapons
except the whole armor of faith,
that in dying we may live,
and, having nothing, we may own the world,
through Jesus Christ. AMEN
--Janet Morley, All desires known, 1988
