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A phoenix rises from the mists

The ivory-billed woodpecker, long believed extinct, surfaces in a part of Arkansas this columnist and bird lover passed through recently. By Paul Sullivan

Date published: 5/7/2005

LAST WEEK'S announcement of the redis- covery of a creature long given up for extinct was an electric shock to millions around the world.

If only I had known.

If only I had known three weeks ago when, by sheer random chance, I drove through the heart of the eastern Arkansas wild lands where an ivory-billed woodpecker has been found, I would have stopped and stayed awhile.

Returning from Arizona, following the interstates, I caught blue-line fever. You know blue-line fever. That's when the urge to get off those clogged concrete arteries takes over and you want to see real towns and talk to real people and maybe, just maybe, get the chance to discover something unusual, something that hasn't been put in your path "for your enjoyment" (or annoyance).

Well, I did that in Arkansas, studying the map and giving the nod to a long detour eastward along U.S. 64 on a route that took me nearly 100 miles across a low-lying forested wetlands region known as the Big Woods, with no sizable towns and countless meandering waterways. One guidebook characterizes the Cache River National Wildlife Refuge here as one of the eight most important wetlands in the United States.

When the news broke last week that a lone Arkansas paddler, deep within this wilderness, had spotted the striking and unmistakable ivory-bill, I was certainly able to make the connection.

The initial discovery was made more than a year ago, but kept secret for fear of endangering this most endangered of species. While scientists from the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology have since confirmed and repeated the sighting seven times, much remains to be known.

Birds that have been seen to date have all been males, leading to speculation on the existence of a viable breeding population of the ivory-bill.

Of course, I didn't see one of the fabled birds when I drove past the Big Woods, but the mere fact that I have seen where it lives is meaningful to me. And while I have never paddled in those vast lowlands of the Mississippi River basin, I have paddled extensively in swamps of the Southeast, which resemble this more westerly habitat.

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Date published: 5/7/2005