Foraging Ivory-billed Woodpeckers in the Singer Tract in Louisiana: matching James T. Tanner´s field notes with his photographs from 1939

LAMMERTINK, MARTJAN; MICHAELS, MARK A. ; HUNTER, WILLIAM C. ; MICHOT, THOMAS C.

The Migrant

Tennesee Ornithological Society

Año: 2021 vol. 93

0026-3575

Few photographs exist of living Ivory-billed Woodpeckers (Campephilus principalis),and no previously known photographs show the species foraging. We found a referencein James T. Tanner’s field notes to several photographs taken on 23 April 1939 of a groupof Ivory-billed Woodpeckers foraging in a recently dead pecan tree (Carya illinoinensis).We also found a series of four archived photographs taken by Tanner that shows the sameupper branches of a recently dead pecan. We found at least one definitive and probably upto three Ivory-billed Woodpeckers in the photographs, indicating these were the intendedsubjects. Approximately 30% of the bark is removed from a perch branch between the firstand last images in the sequence, consistent with known foraging behavior of Ivory-billedWoodpeckers. The photographs illustrate aspects of Ivory-billed Woodpecker foragingbehavior described in the literature and show individuals in the group spaced at distancesof <1 m. These are among the last known photographs from the Singer Tract population.1 Research