Ivory-billed Woodpeckers by Joseph Bartholomew Kidd After John James Audubon

 

Recently, I decided to try and find a portrait of Ivory-billed Woodpeckers by John James Audubon that I recalled seeing on display in one of the exhibit halls at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City a long time ago. I had no luck finding it again at the museum during periodic visits. However, it turned out that it was easy to locate the portrait online. When I did so, I learned that this curiosity was actually an oil on canvas creation painted by Joseph Bartholomew Kidd around the year 1830 that was fashioned after Audubon's watercolor. The painting is currently on display in Gallery 774 at the museum, a gallery which you can surely find by asking one of the museum personnel for its location.

The museum has information on this piece online, and here is an excerpt:

Audubon made his watercolor of the ivory-bill...before 1826, and commissioned Kidd to copy it and other of his bird subjects in oil for display in a traveling exhibition Audubon planned but never realized. The copyist added the landscape background.

Click here to read more about this painting at the Metropolitan Museum of Art's site.

Ivorybill Search: Across the Pascagoula: Otter Pond and Beyond

Brian Carlisle and Chris Carlisle maintain a fantastic site called "Kints" which documents their ongoing search for the Ivory-billed Woodpecker in southern Mississippi. Kints (or "kents") refers to the common note or call of the Ivorybill. Chris Carlisle recently did a great post describing their search of the Pascagoula Wildlife Management Area. It includes over six dozen photographs, two of which are posted here, with permission.

Reading through the post along with seeing so many beautiful photos of the forest that the Carlisles searched transported me back to the very special times that I found myself lucky enough to be searching for the Ivorybill, starting at dawn, in similarly beautiful forests in Florida, Louisiana and South Carolina.

Here's an excerpt from the Carlisle brothers' post that describes the forest:

Beautiful, mature second- and third-growth mixed bottomland hardwood and cypress/tupelo swamp forest, with a path running roughly northeast-southwest.  We decided to follow the path northeastward, and walked through some very nice hardwood forest habitat, with many different types of trees -- swamp chestnut oak, water oak, sycamore, holly, red maple, green ash, magnolia, what I believe to be pignut hickory, and shagbark hickory. 

Read the full post here at Kints

Native American Pipe Stem with Ivory-billed Woodpecker Scalp

Here is an image of a Native American pipe stem circa 1800 - 1825. It features an Ivory-billed Woodpecker scalp that is apparent to the far right, in black and red, just to the left of the two blue bands that are separated by a brown band. The pipe belongs to the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ecology at Harvard University. It was loaned out to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City as part of a beautiful exhibit entitled The Plains Indians - Artists of Earth and Sky, at the museum, March 9 - May 10, 2015.

The book that accompanies this exhibit explains:

"Attached to the stem is the head and scalp of an ivory-billed woodpecker, a bird widely associated with leadership, warfare, and calumet ceremonialism."

Illustration of male Powerful and Crimson-bellied Woodpeckers by George F. Sandström

Illustration by George F. Sandström, © Delaware Museum of Natural History

Continuing with the 6th and final entry in this series, here is a splendid illustration by George F. Sandström which appears on Plate 79 of Woodpeckers of the World by Lester L. Short, published by the Delaware Museum of Natural History (1982). The bird at the upper left of the illustration is a male Powerful Woodpecker, and a male Crimson-bellied Woodpecker appears to the right. 

These two bird species of humid, wet forests are sympatric, occurring together in Columbia, Ecuador and Peru. The Crimson-bellied Woodpecker's range also extends into parts of Panama. The dark bill on these two species is a notable field mark, in contrast to the pale or ivory colored bills that appear in several other species within the same genus.

This illustration is posted here pursuant to permission obtained from the publisher.

Illustration of male Red-necked and Robust Woodpeckers by George F. Sandström

Illustration by George F. Sandström, © Delaware Museum of Natural History

Continuing with the 5th entry in this series, here is a beautiful illustration by George F. Sandström which appears on Plate 80 of Woodpeckers of the World by Lester L. Short, published by the Delaware Museum of Natural History (1982). The bird at the upper portion of the illustration is a male Red-necked Woodpecker and a male Robust Woodpecker appears below.

You can find a detailed profile that I authored of the Red-necked Woodpecker at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's Birds of the World site at this link:

Red-necked Woodpecker

 This illustration is posted here pursuant to permission obtained from the publisher.