“The Thing with Feathers”

At the beginning of this class, way at the beginning of the semester, I had no idea what the heck the Ivory-billed Woodpecker was, nor did I want to learn about an extinct bird. After almost a whole semester and two articles about this supposedly extinct bird, I can’t help but want to know more! The article “The Thing with Feathers” by Wells Tower really opened up my eyes as to how dedicated one could be trying to find a bird that nobody had seen in decades. Rachael stated in her blog post that she doesn't know what she would did had she spotted an Ivory-billed and then asks “What would you do in the situation? Would you be reporting our findings and risk harsh doubt?” and the answer to those questions really depends on the situation and the person. Personally, if I were to spot an Ivory-billed somewhere, I would probably do a little happy dance and then spread the word to as many people as I know. Even though this magnificent bird has been ‘extinct’ for so many years, there’s no way I would pass up the opportunity to tell people that I saw probably the only living Ivory-billed Woodpecker, you can’t just keep that information to yourself! What also blew me away were the statistics given about this bird; the fact that is stood almost 2-feet tall frightens me, how can a bird get so big? I know we have emus and ostriches, but this is HUGE for a bird I think, especially a woodpecker.  Overall I really enjoyed this article; I thought it was helpful to be reading something that relates to me, in the sense that I would be just as excited as Gene Sparling was when he thought he had seen an extinct bird.