Prof. Geoff Hill and fellow researchers from the University of Georgia are going back into the swamps of the Choctawhatchee River Basin in the Florida panhandle. This will be their fourth season in that area. In 2006 and 2007 they chased for birds, following leads, covering ground. They had a handful of fleeting sightings and many recorded calls and knocks. In 2008, with federal funding, they changed tactics, searching randomly chosen sections of swamp. They came out at the end of the effort with no new sightings and only two sound detections, both described as sets of clear double knocks, typical for the species. This season they go in with new remote cameras triggered by vibrations of the tree to which they are mounted — vibrations produced by a pounding woodpecker, for example. Evidence continues to be gathered, but no definitive evidence has yet come to hand. People keep asking why there are no good photos of the birds if they truly are there. Here’s my challenge for the doubters: take a camera with a telephoto lens. Walk through any thick woods — Minnesota forest, Florida swamp, your choice — and come out with a clear definitive photo of a Pileated Woodpecker, not a difficult bird to find. But, like any wary bird that flushes quickly and often at a distance, very difficult to photograph. The photo is of a Pileated Woodpecker, but not a Pileated in flight, something I have never managed to photograph.

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