A few days ago I mentioned a recent challenge to the claim by a Cornell-led team of ornithologists that the ivory-billed woodpecker was not, as previously thought, extinct. These doubts were upsetting not because they were necessarily illegitimate or unfounded, but rather because they suggested that the celebration surrounding the return of the ivory-billed woodpecker might have been for naught. Hence my happiness at discovering that the Cornell team provided the doubters with heretofore undisclosed audio recordings made in the Cache River National Wildlife Refuge in eastern Arkansas, where the bird was thought to have been sighted.

The recordings come from over 17,000 hours of audio recorded by the Cornell team, which are being scoured for signs of the ivory-billed woodpecker with computer assistance. Nuthatch has the inside scoop for those of you who are ornithologically inclined, but what the computer is searching for is a distinctive double rap, which is characteristic of the ivory-billed woodpecker, genus Campephilus, and dissimilar from that of the visually similar pileated woodpecker, genus Dryocopus.

"We were very skeptical of the first published reports, and thought that the previous data were not sufficient to support this startling conclusion," Prum said. "But the thrilling new sound recordings provide clear and convincing evidence that the ivory-billed woodpecker is not extinct."