Friday, February 5, 2010

Early Audubon Drawings & Project Coyote Update

Originally posted 5/13/10 - backdated to organize posts by topic.

This post may be old news to some of you.  But only recently, I was excited to discover an 1812 illustration of a male and female Ivory-billed Woodpecker by John James Audubon.  The image you see below is one of 116 drawings that appear in Audubon: Early Drawings by Harvard University Press published in 2008.  For more information about the book:

Also, check out a pleasing arrangement of several drawings from the book:



Incidentally, Wikipedia Commons has a large file version of Audubon's more renowned, later drawing of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker from Birds of America.


And in case you haven't heard yet...

On a related note, the Project Coyote site that details the ongoing search for the Ivory-billed Woodpecker in east central Louisiana was recently updated.  It's a very interesting read.  The update by Mark Michaels focuses on woodpecker anatomy and what it may imply in terms of foraging sign.

Why does it matter? 

Distinguishing Ivory-billed Woodpecker foraging sign from that of other woodpeckers could go a long way toward locating extant populations of this elusive bird.


There are also several photos, including scaling on a live tree, from an earlier update at the Project Coyote site (it's on the same page as the latest update) where Mark M. writes:

This update includes an image of scaling on a live tree (a Nutall oak, we suspect) in our search area.  We've had several requests for close-ups of scaled trees, showing evidence of insect infestation and are providing a number of examples.

And so the search for the Ivory-billed Woodpecker continues in Louisiana.

1 comments:

monic said...

Bonsoir!
The book named Early Audubon Drawings seems to be very interesting: lovely drawings before camera!faingsh Thanks for your message.