Pileated comparison videos

[DannyITR]

Dave Nolin recently visited the Big Woods as part of the Cornell volunteer program. He has been persuing Ivorybills for years and is an experienced field researcher. Here he presents a series of Pileated Woodpecker videos in order to demonstrate what the Pileated looks like flying at different angles and at different speeds. You may compare this to the Luneau video of an Ivory-billed Woodpecker taken at Bayou deView in 2004 and you can post comments either here on Birdviewing.com (http://birdviewing.com/forums/../) or at Birdforum.net (http://birdforum.net/)


http://birdviewing.com/upload/NolinPileatedVideos.wmv

[Chris]

Check out the Ivorybill center..there are 2 new Dave Nolin videos!

[emupilot]

The extensive white visible from behind as the Pileated is flying is very interesting. Given the blurriness in the Luneau video, I am skeptical of using the amount of white to identify the bird as IBWO. However, the Nolin videos make clear that the Pileated flight style and wingbeat rate (as snown in other videos as well) would appear to rule out Pileated for the Luneau video. My nature is to resist turning a negative identification (NOT a Pileated) into a positive one (IS Ivory-billed). In my opinion, that's just too much to impute from too few pixels. Frankly, I always found the multiple credible sightings from competent observers (including 2 observers simultaneously) much more compelling than the Luneau video anyway.