A Search for the Ivory-billed Woodpecker

The ivory-billed woodpecker is thought to be the largest woodpecker in North America. These woodpeckers can have the height of around 20 inches and have a wingspan of about 30 inches. So, what is so important about these birds? Well, the ivory-billed woodpecker is thought to be extinct since there have not been many sightings of it since a long time. The most recent sighting was made in the Cache River Refuges of Arkansas where a kayaker reported seeing the woodpecker to Professor Ken Goldberg of the University of California Berkeley in 2004. Professor Goldberg, a colleague at Texas A&MUniversity and researchers from the Lab of Ornithology at Cornell University are looking for the mysterious ivory-billed woodpecker in eastern Arkansas. At a marshland in Arkansas, two robotic video cameras keep their eyes, or lenses, peeled for the woodpecker. The cameras are funded by the National Science Foundation and can hopefully find evidence that the ivory-billed woodpecker is not extinct. Since the woodpeckers have had no confirmed sightings since around half a century, the cameras are made to capture any movements in the marshes, shooting about 22 frames per second. That is some fast picture-taking! Some of the shots that have been taken by the robotic video cameras can confirm the existence of the woodpeckers but, unfortunately, some experts feel that they are shots of a pileated woodpecker which looks very similar to the ivory-billed woodpecker. Since these cameras shoot any wildlife, they are positioned to aim at the sky to find flying birds only. There is a computer that is connected to the camera pointing east and the other camera pointing west which goes through the data of the video cameras and keeps only a fraction of the shots taken. I feel that it was a really smart decision to use cameras for this project and that it is really amazing on how these robots can tell which shots are of birds and which are of other objects. It seems like these video cameras were really programmed well. I actually never knew that robots are already being invented to do so much scientific research. It must have taken a long time for scientists to come up with these cameras. It did say in the article, though, that there are some flaws in the cameras. Professor Goldberg said that these cameras were sometimes distracted by blowing leaves and false readings from clouds. I guess it must be really frustrating for the researchers when that happens. Luckily, the cameras are covered in waterproof gear so that they are safe from any hunters in the marshlands and won’t get damaged by the weather. The researchers still have not found any proof of the ivory-billed woodpecker’s existence. Will they ever find any? Well, I can’t answer that question but I can wish the researchers the best of luck to find a perfect picture of the ivory-billed woodpecker in the marshes of Arkansas.

Want to learn more about this research project? You can visit this website: http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/02/19/robot.woodpecker.reut/index.html