Family: Picidae, Woodpeckers view all from this family
Description 19-21" (48.5-53.5 cm). This huge black and white woodpecker has a crest that is red in males and black in females; both sexes have a black crown and forehead, and black around the ivory-colored bill and the throat. A white stripe on each side of the head extends from below the rear of the mustache area to the sides of the neck and onto the side of the back; these stripes connect midway down the back. There is a broad white patch on the rear of the upper wing. The eyes are yellowish; the tail, underparts, and the rest of the wing are black. Immatures are duller black with more restricted white and no red on the head.
Endangered Status The Ivory-billed Woodpecker is classified as an endangered species throughout its range in the U.S. and Cuba, and for decades had been presumed by many experts to be extinct. The largest of North American woodpeckers, the Ivory-bill once ranged throughout the southeastern U.S. in old-growth forests. It was brought to the brink of extinction by the logging of the forests that made up its habitat, and by hunters, who sought it for food. There had not been a substantiated sighting of the bird in the United States from the mid-20th century until 2004.
Credible sightings in 1999 in Louisiana raised the hope of some that these magnificent birds still existed. During a search in early 2002 a recording was made of what could have been an Ivory-billed Woodpecker drumming, and some trees were found that showed encouraging signs of stripped bark and hole excavation. As yet, however, searchers have been unable to confirm the Louisiana sightings or find definitive evidence that Ivory-bills have been feeding in the region.
In 2004, however, reports began to come in of a male Ivory-bill in a deep forest swamp in Arkansas. Confirmation sightings and a video tape made it official in April 2005: The Ivory-billed Woodpecker still exists. Sightings have been made only of a male, who appears to be a healthy vigorous individual. The investigation continues, and scientists hope to determine whether there are other individuals, especially breeding pairs, or whether all the sightings have been of a single male, who is possibly the last of his kind. One thing is clear: the Ivory-billed Woodpecker, for all its size and magnificence, is remarkably good at keeping out of the way of humans.
Habitat Forested swamps, in and along the edges of pine forests.
Range Formerly resident from Missouri, southern Illinois, and North Carolina south to eastern Texas, the Gulf coast, southern Florida, and Cuba. Currently known only in the Cache River National Wildlife Refuge, in eastern Arkansas.
Voice A nuthatch-like, nasal kent, unlike any call of Pileated Woodpecker. Drum a double drum-tap, not a roll.
Similar Species Pileated Woodpecker has dark bill, red or black mustache, white throat, white stripe from bill across cheek, and white patch only on forward two-thirds of wing lining. Call very different.
Discussion The Ivory-bill had disappeared for so long, that not much is known about its habits. Cuban Ivory-bills, known until the late 1980s, lived in pines, as do the related Imperial Woodpeckers of Mexico. In such forests, the Ivory-bill finds stands of fire-killed trees, from which it strips the bark to obtain wood-boring insects for its young. The bird’s habitat in Cuba has been largely destroyed as well, and no birds have been seen there in more than a dozen years, but the new findings in Arkansas extend the hope that this secretive species survives there as well.
