Laugh Loud and Often

The Christian Science Monitor is reporting that the ivory-billed woodpecker, thought to have been extinct for years has been sighted again. Trivia: Woodpeckers are a federally protected bird under the North American Migratory Bird Act.

The striking bird, last seen in 1944, has been rediscovered in the Big Woods area of Arkansas, scientists and conservationists reported Thursday.

"This is thrilling beyond words ... after 60 years of fading hope that we would ever see this spectacular bird again," John W. Fitzpatrick, director of the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology, said at a news conference.

Though I'm neither a naturalist (not to be confused with a nudist) nor a birdwatcher, I do know that all woodpeckers are of value to us. It has been shown that two-thirds to three-fourths of their food consists of insects, chiefly noxious wood-boring beetles and many caterpillars, mostly species that burrow into trees. [Click on images to enlarge]

Next in importance is the ants that live in decaying wood, all of which are sought by woodpeckers and eaten in great quantities. Many ants are particularly harmful to timber because if a scout ant finds a small spot of decay in the vacant burrow of some wood-borers, an army will show up and enlarge the hole. The whole trunk is eventually honeycombed and the weakened tree is easily fell even by a gust. Moreover, these insects are not accessible to other birds, and could pursue their career of unmolested destruction were it not for the woodpeckers. These amazing birds have beaks and tongues especially fitted for drilling into trees.

It is thus evident that woodpeckers are great conservators of forests. We owe to them more than to any Agency the preservation of timber from hordes of destructive insects. Log cabin owners are often annoyed at the damage caused by woodpeckers; however they protect and conserve the forest. That's a huge tradeoff.

This discovery is met with as much enthusiasm as that of the Eat-Me Butterfly.