Persists or Impersonates

Although G. Sparling and company believe they saw the ivory-billed woodpecker, there is just not enough proof to convince me. The video footage was grainy, but based on Audubon’s Ivory-billed woodpecker sketch and the images provided within the article, I could make out the large white patches visible on the bird’s wings. The long patches on its wings in the video were definitely larger than that in the images of the pileated woodpecker’s. However, the fine print on page 1461 reveals that “distances and light conditions” induce color bleeding, exaggerating the white coloration of the wings. Even though the video may seem like hard proof, it is just too poorly shot to tell. Having taken place in 2004 and 2005, I do not understand how these observers have not gotten better images of the bird. Modern cameras offer better quality than whatever they were using.