IvoryBilledWoodpecker_ElusiveNomad_Collins_Fred_HoustonTX_19October2021_Reel4074&4075.mp3

Fred Collins [00:00:00] Tanner, who is the only person to have ever methodically studied the species and reported on that, and he in essence studied mostly just one pair, so we don't know if that's really completely typical, or not.

Fred Collins [00:00:22] And he was in a large virgin forest still at that point in time.

Fred Collins [00:00:28] So we're drawing a lot of what we know of the birds based on his observation and on what he reported.

Fred Collins [00:00:35] He didn't put everything in his report that he knew. And he didn't put some things in the report, because it would not make him look so good.

Fred Collins [00:00:48] And those, those things were later divulged, over time, and a lot of it didn't come out until after 2005 when interest in his report got very strong again.

Fred Collins [00:01:01] He had passed away, but his wife was still living and provided his notes to people. And we learned some additional things about him and his observations at that point in time.

Fred Collins [00:01:14] So anyway, he had pointed out that the birds were, had a nomadic tendency and that he had commented in his book that they were fairly easy to locate, but they were hard to keep up with because they would move so far, sometime with one, with one flight jaunt. So he couldn't keep up with them. And the pair would call to one another, so whenever they landed, they would start calling to one another again, and they could relocate them and go off.

Fred Collins [00:01:45] And he also reported that there was some dispersal that he thought was not associated with mortality, but he thought it was these birds just dispersing from the area. So based on that, you can assume that the birds could take up a nomadic lifestyle fairly easily.

Fred Collins [00:02:06] And then what he didn't reveal in his book that was found, that we learned after 2005 from his wife, was that Tanner had never been able to find these birds by himself. So his known pair that he's studying and is talking about that they were easy to keep up with, he couldn't find them without the help of his local guide. And that's the man that was in the pictures, the famous pictures he took of this juvenile woodpecker hopping all around on this fellow, and that was his guide. And the guide could find the woodpeckers. But Tanner, in spite of having studied them all those years, was not able to keep up with them.

Fred Collins [00:02:45] Tanner was not able to find his own birds. So, you know, the point is, birds can be difficult to find and detect.