Did I See an Ivory-Billed Woodpecker?

Ivory-Billed Woodpecker Background

Historically, Ivory-billed Woodpeckers occurred throughout much of the American Southeast from Texas to North Carolina and north along the Mississippi Valley into Oklahoma, Missouri, and parts of Indiana and Illinois (Allen and Kellogg 1937). Wides-cale cutting of virgin forest in the 1800s and killing of birds by professional collectors led to a drastic decline in their numbers. By the early 1900s, Ivory-billed Woodpeckers were quite rare and thought to be “confined to a few isolated portions of Florida, and possibly, Indian Territory” (Reed 1925). In fact, in 1939, James T. Tanner estimated that only about 25 Ivory-billed Woodpeckers remained in the United States. At the time, Tanner was a graduate student at Cornell University studying the species for his Ph.D. degree. The last unequivocal sighting of a wild Ivory-billed Woodpecker was in 1944 in the Tensas River region of northeast Louisiana in a swamp forest known as the Singer Tract (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service). Despite reports of Ivory-billed Woodpecker sightings in the decades following the last confirmed observation at the Singer Tract (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 2010), no irrefutable evidence of the species’ continued existence has yet emerged.

However, in early 2004 a naturalist named Gene Sparling, just back from a kayaking trip in remote eastern Arkansas, reported on the internet his encounter with an especially large, red-crested woodpecker in the Big Woods—he strongly suspected he saw an Ivory-billed Woodpecker and not the slightly smaller and common Pileated Woodpecker. Tim Gallagher (a wildlife photographer from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology) and Bobby Harrison (a college professor from Oakwood College in Alabama), both Ivory-billed Woodpecker enthusiasts, learned of the report, and Sparling agreed to take them to the place where he saw the bird.

In an almost unbelievable streak of good fortune, a short while later they were paddling their canoe near the location where Sparling had seen the bird when a large woodpecker they were sure was an Ivory-billed flew directly in front of them in full view. What ensued was a monumental effort by numerous people spearheaded by Dr. John W. Fitzpatrick, Director of the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology, to collect additional evidence documenting Ivory-billed Woodpeckers. Thousands of person-hours were spent searching for the bird and numerous audio recorders were deployed in an attempt to detect the distinctive, squeaky “kent” calls and other sounds of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker. In June of 2005, Fitzpatrick and colleagues published the results of their efforts in the prestigious scientific journal Science. In the article, they provide several lines of evidence (e.g., human observations, audio recordings, video footage) that, as indicated by the article’s title, the “Ivory-billed Woodpecker (Campephilus principalis) Persists in Continental North America” (Fitzpatrick et al. 2005). The main piece of evidence upon which they base their claim is a brief, grainy video (dubbed the “Luneau video”) showing a large woodpecker flying away from the camera—the bird’s wings and back are only visible for about five seconds. As would be expected, their report garnered a tremendous amount of attention in the media, possibly the most prominent of which was a TV story, “The Lord God Bird,” which appeared in primetime on the show 60 Minutes in October of 2005.

No doubt encouraged by the findings of the Cornell team, a small group of scientists from Auburn University report that they have seen an Ivory-billed Woodpecker on numerous occasions in a swamp forest along the Choctawhatchee River in the Florida Panhandle. In their 2006 publication, they present evidence based on those observations, including sound recordings, signs of foraging, and measurements of tree cavities they claim provide evidence the species has persisted in Florida as well (Hill et al. 2006). And, as recently as 2022, another team of researchers presented similar evidence collected over a 10-year period they claim supports the notion that Ivory-billed Woodpeckers persist in Louisiana (Latta et al. 2023). However, a critical piece of evidence lacking in each of these studies is the proverbial “smoking gun”: no indisputable photo or video clearly showing an Ivory-billed Woodpecker has yet materialized. Interestingly, of the 14 firsthand observations reported in Florida (in addition to numerous trail-camera images and a drone video), the 16 reported observations in Louisiana, and the “Luneau” video from Arkansas, only one observation includes mention of the namesake white beak of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker. And that observation, initially made by Frank Wiley on April 3, 2015, was written for the Latta et al. (2023) study by another member of the team because Wiley had since died. More details about the search for the bird can be found on the Cornell Lab of Ornithology website on their page The Search for the Ivory-billed Woodpecker.

Understandably, skeptics have strongly debated the existence of Ivory-billed Woodpeckers and have argued that observations and other evidence (e.g., foraging sign and tree cavities) are misidentifications of the common, and similar-looking, Pileated Woodpecker (Collinson 2007; Sibley et al. 2006; Michalak 2024). Nonetheless, the information in the three studies cited earlier makes a compelling argument that Ivory-billed Woodpeckers did recently, and may still, persist in some areas of their historical range. Thus, we argue that amateur naturalists should continue to stay vigilant and report credible, evidence-based observations of large woodpeckers in the Southeast.

Identifying Pileated and Ivory-billed Woodpeckers

Pileated and Ivory-billed Woodpeckers are among the largest woodpeckers in the world and are the largest woodpeckers by far in the southeastern United States. They are black and white and have a prominent crest of feathers on their heads. Male and female Pileated Woodpeckers have red on their crests, but only the male Ivory-billed has red crest feathers—the crest of the female is black. Both species have a white stripe that extends from each cheek down the neck (Figure 2).

Adult Ivory-billed Woodpeckers are approximately 19 to 20 inches long and are slightly larger than the similar looking Pileated. As their name implies, they have a prominent white beak. When an Ivory-billed Woodpecker is perched on a tree with its wings folded against the body, two white stripes are clearly visible on the back extending to the rump. These are extensions of the white cheek stripes. There is also a large, triangular white patch on the lower back of an Ivory-billed Woodpecker created by the white trailing ends of the wing feathers. As noted above, both sexes have a prominent head crest that is red in the male and black in the female. In flight, the trailing edges of the wings are white when viewed from above and below the bird (Figure 3).

Adult Pileated Woodpeckers are approximately 16 to 19 inches long, or about the size of a crow. The beak of a Pileated Woodpecker is gray with a dark tip. When the bird is perched with folded wings, a white stripe extends from each cheek down the neck. But unlike in the Ivory-billed, the stripe does not extend onto the back. Also, when perched, in contrast to an Ivory-billed, the back of a Pileated is solid black (Figure 2). Adults of both sexes of the Pileated have a prominent red crest, and the male also has a red “mustache” on its chin. In flight, the trailing edge of the Pileated’s wings are black, not white, when viewed from above and below the bird (Figure 3).

Both species excavate large cavities in dead trees or large dead limbs of living trees. And they both use their strong beaks to excavate for insects in dead wood. Pileated Woodpeckers are renowned for tearing apart dead trees and stumps (Figure 4), whereas Ivory-billed Woodpeckers are known for scaling (peeling) bark from recently dead trees.

Both species also make distinct, and quite different, vocalizations. The vocalization of the Ivory-billed, known from just a single audio recording from 1935, has been compared to the squeak of a clarinet or tin horn, and is often referred to as a “kent” or “kint” call. In contrast, the vocalization of a Pileated is a series of loud, repeated chattering notes.

The range (distribution) of the Pileated Woodpecker is much larger than the presumed range of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker and includes the entire southeastern United States, where the two species overlap. Both prefer areas of dense hardwoods and mixed hardwood-pine forests. All reports of suspected Ivory-billed Woodpeckers during the past 20 or so years have come from remote areas in mature swamp forests. Pileated Woodpeckers inhabit such areas as well but are also relatively common in forested neighborhoods. For example, in Gainesville, Florida, Pileated Woodpeckers are regularly seen in wooded neighborhoods (Pegg et al. 2024).

Online Resources

60 Minutes Archive video—The Lord God Bird

Cornell Lab of Ornithology—All About Birds guide

Cornell Lab of Ornithology—All About Birds Ivory-billed Woodpecker page

Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission—Ivory-billed Woodpecker (Campephilus principalis) page

iNaturalist: A Community for Naturalists https://www.inaturalist.org/

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service—FWS's Ivory-billed Woodpecker page

Field Guides and Books

Elphick, C., J. B. Dunning, Jr., and D. A. Sibley. 2001. The Sibley Guide to Bird Life & Behavior. Alfred A. Knopf Publishing, New York.

Gallagher, T. 2005. The Grail Bird: Hot on the Trail of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston.

Jackson, J. A. 2004. In Search of the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, D.C.

Pegg, N. M., M. Hostetler, M. Andreu, and M. Main. 2024. “Occurrence of Interior-Forest Specialist Birds in Older Residential Neighborhoods in Gainesville, Florida.” Florida Scientist 87:81–93.

Reed, C. A. 1925. Bird Guide: Land Birds East of the Rockies. Doubleday, Page and Company, New York.

Sibley, D. A. 2000. The Sibley Guide to Birds. Alfred A. Knopf Publishing, New York.