Bird Spy

Hidden within the dense foliage of the Bayou DeView in Arkansas, a robotic camera hangs from a power line. Its job: To capture conclusive video evidence of the elusive ivory-billed woodpecker.

Standing at 18 to 20 inches tall with a wingspan of about 30 inches, the bird was considered the largest living woodpecker north of Mexico. Six decades ago the bird vanished and most bird watchers and scientists alike considered the ivory-billed woodpecker extinct. Then in 2004, biologists made national news headlines when they captured a few seconds of video of what appeared to be an ivory-billed woodpecker. The sightings generated controversy, with skeptics claiming that the fuzzy image in the video was actually a look-alike, the pileated woodpecker.

The autonomous video system consists of two cameras--one pointing east and the other west--which are connected to a computer that processes the data. The software can detect when a bird is passing by and filter out false readings from clouds, water reflections and falling leaves.

If the researchers obtain conclusive photographic evidence of the woodpecker, it will settle the avian debate. "If this persistent robot out on the bayou manages to capture verifiable high-resolution images of the legendary ivory-bill, it would be a major discovery for scientists, for conservationists and for more than 45 million American bird-watchers," said co-researcher Ken Goldberg of the University of California, Berkeley. Goldberg presented video clips showing other birds in the bayou at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in San Francisco.

--LiveScience Staff

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Credit: Audubon Society