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The ghost hunter.


Tim Gallagher Tim Gallagher has been the editor-in-chief of the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology's Living Bird magazine since 1990.

He played an instrumental role in the rediscovery of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker, as one of the first three searchers to see and identify this long-missing
 got his Eureka moment in the swamps of Arkansas on February 27, 2004. In his book The Grail Bird: Hot on the Trail of the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker ivory-billed woodpecker, common name for the largest of the North American woodpeckers, Campephilus principalis. Once plentiful in Southern hardwood forests, since 1952 it was believed to be extinct or nearing extinction.  (Houghton Mifflin Houghton Mifflin Company is a leading educational publisher in the United States. The company's headquarters is located in Boston's Back Bay. It publishes textbooks, instructional technology materials, assessments, reference works, and fiction and non-fiction for both young readers , $25) this lifetime birder and magazine editor at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology ornithology

Branch of zoology dealing with the study of birds. Early writings on birds were largely anecdotal (including folklore) or practical (e.g., treatises on falconry and game-bird management).
 writes about fulfilling a long-held dream: "And then it happened. Less than 80 feet away, a large black-and-white bird that had been flying toward us from a side channel of the bayou to the right came out into the sunshine and flew across the open stretch of water directly in front of us. It started to bank, giving us a superb view of its back and both wings ... We both cried out simultaneously, 'Ivory-bill.'" The rest, you might say, is history. A few months later, another Cornell researcher shot a fuzzy video of an ivory-bill, and the distinguished journal Science made it official. The grail bird, last reliably seen in 1944, was back. Gallagher's book makes exciting reading, capturing the hard work that led to a rediscovery that electrified the world. One hopes, after the news sinks in, we'll have the good sense to preserve the southern swamp forest habitat that this elusive bird needs for survival. If we had been smarter, we'd still have the passenger pigeon passenger pigeon: see pigeon.
passenger pigeon

Extinct species (Ectopistes migratorius) of pigeon (subfamily Columbinae, family Columbidae). Passenger pigeons were about 13 in.
 and the Carolina parakeet.
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Title Annotation:The Grail Bird: Hot on the Trail of the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker book by Tim Gallagher
Author:Motavalli, Jim
Publication:E
Article Type:Book Review
Date:Jul 1, 2005
Words:216
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