|
|
|||||||||||||||||||
|
View the next ivory-billed woodpecker postcard >> |
||||||||||||||||||
Photos from the Big Woods |
By Phillip Hoose
Senior Conservation Planner, The Nature Conservancy;
Author of The Race To Save the Lord God Bird
(Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Postcard #1: A Sunny Day in a Great Swamp
Black Swamp, Eastern Arkansas
May 4, 2005 — 2:00 PM
I squirm forward to scoot our canoe over the first of many beaver dams that block our passage through a flooded channel of the Black Swamp.
The water level is low, several feet below the white high-water stripe left on every tree. My boatmates on this excursion through ivory-bill country are Leslie Peacock, a reporter for the Arkansas Times, and David Luneau, a university professor and engineer whose video camera captured the ivory-bill in flight for four seconds in 2004.
Luneau’s video, clearly showing a large woodpecker with a broad band of white on the lower portion of its wings, provided evidence that the ivory-billed woodpecker had returned to the Big Woods of Arkansas. Luneau spent much of the next year as part of the ivory-bill search team. Clutching his middle, he laments the ten pounds he has gained from sitting in a boat all that time.
The slow water is coffee-colored, the air thick and still. Though there are some cypresses and oaks on higher ground, this is mainly a swamp of thick-bottomed tupelo trees, some of which have been snapped off into jagged stubs and hollowed out by the current. The limbed trees, now in full leaf, have closed to form a canopy against the sun. We move quietly along through this sun-dappled canvas of deep greens, browns and grays.
As we paddle, our eyes are constantly in motion. We are alert for any sight or sound of an ivory-bill. We shield our eyes and gawk up at woodpecker holes drilled high into the trees. All conversation stops whenever a pileated woodpecker hammers a tree with slow commanding bass notes that echo through the swamp.
The Lord God Bird itself remains offstage, nowhere and everywhere.
We round a bend in the channel and send a group of baby wood ducks motoring across the water as their mother squeals from behind. A young cottonmouth slithers out of the water and up onto a muddy bank. It turns to face us, bunching up into tight coils as we pass by.
Bright yellow prothonotary warblers flutter in front of our boat, always at about eye-level, behaving as if they are eager to be seen. Luneau refers to these birds as, "cheap, easy warblers."
Gnatcatchers wheeze and jays scold our progress. Chimney swifts jitter in the air above us, visible whenever the canopy opens. Their twittering is our day’s soundtrack. Ivory-bill or not, I am pleased by the lushness of spring in the Big Woods of Arkansas. It's a sunny day in a great swamp.
View Phillip Hoose's next postcard >>
For more information about the ivory-billed woodpecker and the Big Woods of Arkansas:
- Found: The Ivory-billed Woodpecker
Learn about the timeline of the search for the ivory-bill, The Nature Conservancy's conservation efforts in the Big Woods of Arkansas, meet the search team, and more! - Chat: Phillip Hoose Chats About the Ivory-billed Woodpecker
Phillip Hoose, author of The Race to Save the Lord God Bird, discusses the recent rediscovery of the ivory-billed woodpecker. - Online Excerpt: The Race to Save the Lord God Bird
Read a three-page excerpt of Phillip Hoose's award-winning book about the ivory-billed woodpecker, The Race to Save the Lord God Bird. - How You Can Help: Donate Online
Support our efforts to conserve the critical habitat of the Big Woods for the ivory-billed woodpecker and other species. - News Room: Ivory-billed Woodpecker News
See ivory-billed woodpecker photos, maps of the habitat of the ivory-bill, and other news and information about the rediscovery of the ivory-billed woodpecker.
