The Ivory-bill has frequently been described as a dweller in dark and gloomy swamps, has been associated with muck and murk, has been called a melancholy bird, but it is not that at all—the Ivory-bill is a dweller of the tree tops and sunshine; it lives in the sun...in surroundings as bright as its own plumage."

- James T. Tanner, 1939

Sunday, March 10, 2013

Bird Life of Louisiana 1938




The Bird Life of Louisiana, Bulletin 28, produced by the Department of Conservation of the State of Louisiana in 1938 obviously had copies of Tanner's photographs. An unknown artist used them as reference for the cover illustration. 

Inside, the text reads, "Few birds in Louisiana have had so much attention during the past few years as has the Ivory-billed Woodpecker...It formally occupied the bottomland forests of all the southern states, extending then as far north as southern Indiana and North Carolina, but at the present time its numbers have been so greatly reduced that it is confined to a few restricted areas in the wilder parts of a few of the southern states. It is a bird of heavy bottomland forests, and is not so frequently seen on the uplands. Owing to its retiring habits, and the fact that it is dependent on the deep forests for a home, it naturally disappears from areas when the forests are cleared or otherwise destroyed. This accounts for the great contraction of its range during the past 100 years."

The frontispiece for the book was the same illustration by
George Misch Sutton that Jim Tanner used in his book.