from MSNBC via Rurality: Ee IS Not Bleedin' Demised, Dammit!

''Extinct'' ivory billed woodpecker sighted

The ivory-billed woodpecker, feared extinct for 60 years, has been seen in a remote part of Arkansas, ornithologists said Thursday.
Several experts have spotted and heard at least one and possibly more ivory-billed woodpeckers deep in an ancient cypress swamp in eastern Arkansas. One was videotaped last year.
''This is huge. Just huge,'' said Frank Gill, senior ornithologist at the Audubon Society. ''It is kind of like finding Elvis.''
It is just a hop, skip and a jump, as a woodpecker flies, from the last reliable sighting of the bird in Louisiana in 1944.
The large black-and-white birds have distinctive white wing patches and measure at least 20 inches in height. Males have a red crest.
''This is the most spectacular creature we could ever imagine rediscovering,'' John Fitzpatrick of the Cornell University Laboratory of Ornithology in New York told a news conference.
''For three generations this bird has been a symbol of the great old forests of the southern United States,'' he added.
''It is a flagship of the blunders of excess of overharvesting. Nothing could be more hoped for than this Holy Grail.''(more)

WOO HOO! Some good news for a change.
Many thanks to the Nature Conservancy and to the Depts of Agriculture and Interior for securing the habitat.

Lots of great info from Cornell Lab of Ornithology, co-ordinators of the Ivory Bill project
Video of the discovery
More info:
from Birding America
from NPR
from The NYTimes
from Outside
from Science
from US Fish & Wildlife Service

Special thanks to Dave at via negativa for link pointers. His is the first blog I read everyday. It should be yours as well.

Updates:
from Science a PDF of the full text of the article confirming the discovery
from US Fish & Wildlife Service a nice info page with an artist sketch of the ivory bill, a map of habitat areas in the southeast US which may harbor other reminant populations and a short field guide entry on the 'Lord God' birds, including a description of calls and feeding sounds