Central Florida- Ivory Billed Woodpecker?

8 years ago

Hi all! First time posting here. I am a gardener than has developed a love for the birds over the years and I just recently moved to the Tampa area from North Texas and have been having a ball identifying new sights and sounds! I saw a bird last week that really stuck with me- I wish I had been able to get a picture but I didn't. What got my attention to begin with was that it had the colorings/markings of a woodpecker, I did a double take when i realized it didn't quite look like any woodpecker I had seen...specifically I noted the long, almost crane-like neck. of course I haven't seen it again, but I have been doing some looking around on line and the Ivory Billed Woodpecker fits what I saw, but I wonder if there is another bird that looks similar? I read they are rare to see. We do live very close to the Alafia River, so that might bring in some rarer birds possibly?

Also, random question in case someone knows the answer...there is a flock of birds that has been flying over recently in a v formation and I swear it sounds like a squeaky toy convention is overhead. I have yet to go down that rabbit hole, maybe someone here knows the birds I speak of? Thanks for any insight! :)

LBF

Featured Answer

ZachS. z5 Platteville, Colorado

8 years ago

Pileated woodpecker. Ivory billed's are for the most part considered extinct. The population was decimated by the late 1800's due to logging and hunting. The last known ivory billed died in the late 1940's.

Sightings of them pop up here and there, most of the time they are proven to be pileated's, or at the very least cannot be confirmed. While "extinct" soecies have been rediscovered, the reality is that ivory billed woodpeckers depended on vast tracts of virgin old growth forest which simply does not exist anymore. As sad as it is, its highly, HIGHLY, unlikely that this species has survived.

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Comments (8)

catherinet
8 years ago
Pileated woodpecker?
ladybugfruit thanked catherinet
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catherinet
8 years ago
I couldn't remember if Ivory Billeds were considered extinct. How sad. How sad that humans have ruined so much of an incredibly beautiful planet. :(
ladybugfruit thanked catherinet
ladybugfruit
Original Author
8 years ago
How very sad indeed...so many beautiful species of everything that man kills :(

Thank you so much for the insight!
oldned
8 years ago
Try Black-bellied Whistling-Duck for your fly-overs. They made their way from Texas to Florida years ago. Many websites play recordings of those critters.
ladybugfruit thanked oldned
ladybugfruit
Original Author
8 years ago
You made my day oldned!! That is indeed what I was hearing!!! Thank you! :)

I had a great time the summmer before we moved - we had some predatory visitors that nested near our property in Texas that I had never heard and it took me the longest time to track them down based on their song, partly because they had not been in the area much before. Thanks to some time on you tube, I discovered that they were Mississippi Kites and I enjoyed the 3 siblings all summer. Right before we moved I thought I heard them back but never got a chance to verify.
ZachS. z5 Platteville, Colorado
8 years ago
To be fair, while the ABA considers them "definitely or probably extinct", the IUCN has ivory billed woodpeckers listed as "critically endangered" and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service also does not consider them extinct, either. As far as I know, this is based almost exclusively on very hotly debated evidence out of eastern Arkansas and I tend to believe its based more on emotion rather than factual proof. The actual proof is that the last truely known ivory billed woodpeckers were in Louisiana and the last confirmed bird was seen in the 1940's.

Could small numbers of ivory billed woodpeckers still be haunting the bayous and swamps of the south? Sure, stranger things have certainly happened. But I'm a sceptical person and its going to take more than an indistinguishable blurry video and sound echoing off trees and water to convince me otherwise.
barbarella14
8 years ago
Many years ago I thought I had seen one in Myakka River State Park in Florida. It haunts me to this day... Since you're new to the Tampa area & interested in nature and birds, I highly suggest you visit the park. It's fantastic. It's located just inland from Sarasota, so not a far distance from you. A link to the park can be found Here.

Central Florida- Ivory Billed Woodpecker?

ZachS. z5 Platteville, Colorado

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