THE IVORY-BILLED woodpecker Campephilus principalis was thought to have become extinct in the 1940s, a victim of destruction of habitat and hunting. In 2004 a 4.5-second video shot in Arkansas showed a bird that many believe is the Ivory-billed woodpecker.

WHILE THIS DISCOVERY – if it was a discovery – has slipped from the world's consciousness, it has not been forgotten by ornithologists and birders. U.S. Fish and Wildlife scientists have recently taken to the air in a helicopter to survey the area and to search from a different direction. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology has a thorough site on the bird, its fate and the epic search to prove that it is extant. The site optimistically has a form to report sightings.

DON'T RISK FROSTBITE looking for one in Maine. Its habitat is (was) in the deep Southeast and Cuba.

The Search for the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker: www.birds.cornell.edu/ivory/

– Julia McCue, Web content producer