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By Phillip Hoose
Senior Conservation Planner, The Nature Conservancy;
Author of The Race To Save the Lord God Bird
(Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

Postcard #2: The Man Who Started it All

Black Swamp, Eastern Arkansas
May 4, 2005 — 3:30 PM

Paddling our way in a kayak is Gene Sparling, the man who started all this ruckus by spotting an ivory-bill in February of 2004. Friendly and fit, his face reddened by the sun, he stops to greet us and share his story of the first sighting. Somehow, he can still make it seem fresh even after countless retellings. He says someone had told him that there were ancient trees in a particular section of the Big Woods, so he went to see for himself one late winter day.

"I was in a magical place," Sparling recalls, closing his eyes. "Deep and magical, with trees that were very old. I had just set my paddle down, thinking how lucky I was to be alive and in such a place, and that's when the bird flew in. It gave me a long straight view as it flew toward me."

I asked him what went through his mind. He chuckled.

"Well, it was like a thought loop," he said, recounting what went through his head.

That wasn't a pileated. It has to be an ivory-bill.

But the ivory-bill is extinct.

But it wasn't a pileated, so it had to be an ivory-bill.

But the ivory-bill is extinct...

Sparling went home, fired up his computer and typed out his story for an online bird chat. He wrote:

I saw a large woodpecker and the black-and-white pattern seems reversed.

You birders out there know what this implies._

His account made its way through birding circles, which led to visits by ornithologists, further sightings, the creation of a formal study team and significant involvement by The Nature Conservancy.

The rest is, well, the reason why we are sitting on this river today.

Gene paddles away in his kayak, wishing us well. As we watch him disappear, we hope that we will be as lucky as he was.

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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!
• 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.