Gottfried Green

Just for fun I'd like to think that what I saw on Gottfried a few weeks ago was a Ivory-billed woodpecker. I was on the top end of the lot and I heard a tapping sound and knew it was a woodpecker. I walked over to the sound and looked up and saw this beautiful bird with a black body and and a red head. I am not a bird watcher generally but it was pretty impressive. It was tapping into an Australian Pine which is a non-native tree and seemed frustrated and flew off. It wasn't until reading another chapter in Wilson's book The Creation that he described a miraculous discovery of what had been thought of as an extinct woodpecker, the Ivory-billed. He decribed it and mentioned the initial redicovery had occured in the same region where we are in FL and then I began to wonder if this is what I witnessed. I went to the Cornell, Search for the Ivory-billed website (where I pulled the above photo) and found that there is at least a chance it could have been. Confusion often occurs between the more common Pileated woodpecker which is found in open parks, golf courses etc. The habitat on Gottfried matches more closely to that of the Ivory-billed. Unfortunately, there was no camera in hand and I didn't know enough of the markings at the time to have a clue. I'll keep my eye out for a return just in case.

Labels: wildlife