Was It Only a Pileated Woodpecker?

NewScientist.com: Doubts cast on superstar woodpecker's return

The story concerning the rediscovery of the ivory-billed woodpecker (see below) took another turn on Thursday with the publication of two new papers in Science. Michael Patten, at the University of Oklahoma, US, and David Sibley, author of a field guide to North American birds, and colleagues challenged the Cornell University team's interpretations of a video of the supposedly extinct bird.

They conclude the video actually shows a pattern of black and white markings typical of a pileated woodpecker. In particular, some frames appear to show a black stripe behind the white wing markings, which does not occur on the ivory billed woodpecker.

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The problem is that the video – still the best evidence of the woodpecker's existence – contains no more than a blurry, four-and-a-half-second glimpse of a distant bird as it takes off from a tree and flies away into the forest. See the video here (.mov format).

Fitzpatrick's team has painstakingly examined the footage frame by frame, and they remain convinced it shows enough detail to prove that the bird is an ivory-billed woodpecker and not a pileated woodpecker, the only other woodpecker of similar size and appearance.