ML65063321

Age

Not specified

Sex

Not specified

Tags

Field notes/sketch; No bird

Media notes

This image was sketched by Gosse from the study skins he prepared and based on the described interaction provided under the detail section. Depicts an adult male and female.

Observation details

NOTE WELL: This description and accompanying sketch appears to be the earliest recorded sighting of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker in Alabama. "a pair.......were engaged in rapping some tall dead pines, in a dense part of the forest, which rang with their loud notes. These were not at all like the loud laugh of the Pileated, nor the cackle of the smaller species, but a single cry frequently repeated, like the clang of a trumpet..............It is the largest of all the tribe, being twenty inches in length, of a glossy black, broadly marked with pure white. The neck is long and slender, the head is crowned with a tall conical crest of the most splendid crimson, the eye is bright yellow; but the beak is his chief distinction. This is four inches in length, and a full inch in diameter at the base; it tapers to a sharp point, which is wedge-shaped. You would suppose it made of the finest ivory, highly polished, of great hardness, and beautifully grooved or fluted through its whole length. This is the male; the female exactly resembles it, except that her crest is of the same glossy black as the body. We succeeded in shooting both, which I skinned and dissected." (p. 91 in P. H. Gosse. 1859. Letters from Alabama, Chiefly relating to Natural History. London: Morgan and Chase. 324 pp. Reprinted by the University of Alabama Press in 1993)

Technical information

Model

SM-G930V

ISO

125

Focal length

4.2 mm

Flash

Flash did not fire

f-stop

f/1.7

Shutter speed

1/60 sec

Dimensions

3024 pixels x 4032 pixels

Original file size

4.51 MB