Yesterday I visited my great uncle, had lunch with him and after we sat on the porch drinking a adult beverage. I started picking his brain about log sets in the swamp. He was going into detail about how he used to use #11s on logs and he said the best thing to cover them with is "doodle dust" (the fine wood dust that you find in rotten trees). Then he said something that made my heart skip a beat...."The best doodle dust came from the tree where one of them lord gods was nesting." Now the Ivory Billed Woodpecker was called that, so I asked him to tell me about the "lord god". He described the Ivory Billed Woodpecker exactly how they looked, flew and he even did the call of one with his mouth.

I got him talking about the Ivory Bill and he went into great detail about them. He said they didn't die out in the swamp where he lives until the mid 1950's. He told about how he would hunt with his dad and afterwards his father would ask if he heard "dem lord gods calling". He explained in detail of how the birds would remove the bark around the hole where they nested and how they would call to each other. I was in total shock, it was talking to someone who had seen a wooly mammoth. But he also used to hang out with his grandmother who, as a little girl, would smuggle supplies to the local partisan fighters during the Civil War.

Today I'm still in shock that I know someone that actually saw a bird, not a one time thing, but a common occurrence, that many today say are extinct. Still in amazement.

Use to seem them when I was young.

Very blurry footage of an Ivory-billed Woodpecker in Lousiana was released 3 days ago. The picture does not look like definitive proof to me. Hopefully they aren't extinct and hopefully someone gets better evidence.

The last proven sighting was in 1944, 4 years before my parents were born, but during the life span of many people still living.

Keith

I just read today they have new footage of the ivory bills, and have asked to have them unlisted as extinct. Footage was from Louisiana from what I remember.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/18/climate/ivory-billed-woodpecker.html

I remember years ago they saw and filmed some in LA and I heard of a place in Cuba that also had some.

Pretty cool

I wouldn't want them on my land. Somebody is about to lose all their propert rights.

Ask the old feller if they're good eatin?

Wonder how it came to be called "lord god bird"?

If I saw one I doubt I would say a word, like BandB stated, crazy feds would come in and take over everything for miles around

I love seeing the pileated woodpeckers here. Makes me smile everytime I see one

Not as good as a Dodo was.

I looked it up and the consenses is that years ago most peoples reaction to first seeing one is saying "Lord God,what a bird".True or not I have no idea.

Have always been interested in them. The Imperial woodpecker in MX was even larger. I sure hope they have found it.

My dad taught me the pileated woodpecker is called a “Good God” or “Wood Hen”. I never knew the name pileated woodpecker until I went to college.

Friend of mine from LA Has said for years they they are still in the swamps and that he has seen them all the time growing up. He is roughly the same age as me.