Hobbies And Interests
The Bill
The ivory color of the wide bill comes from a sheath made of keratin. Keratin, a fibrous protein, is the main component of feathers, hooves, horns, claws, and feathers of animals. The bill of the woodpecker grows for the entirety of its life. It is constantly pounded and worn down when the bird pecks at trees to extract prey. There is archaeological evidence that the bills were used as decorations by native Americans.
Appearance
Ivory-billed woodpeckers were about 18 to 20 inches long with a wingspan of up to 30 inches. This size made them among the largest woodpeckers in the world. They had a white patch on their wing feathers that looked like a saddle when the woodpecker was seated in a stationary position. The crest of the males was a scarlet red color that extended from the crown to the forehead. The crest on the female woodpecker was black.
Food
The diet consisted mainly of beetle larvae, which is found in dying trees in the bird's habitat. The long beaks allowed them to bore deep into trees to reach the larvae. There were few trees in the Arkansas swamp that showed any damage from long beaks, which was one reason researchers started to doubt the 2005 story. The woodpeckers also ate other insects as well as fruits and nuts like persimmons, acorns, pecans, wild grapes and hackberry.
Habitat
Ivory-billed woodpeckers built nests out of hollowed-out holes in trees. In their prime, they were spotted in swampy forest areas in North Carolina, Texas, Arkansas, Florida, Kentucky, Missouri, and Oklahoma. Their homes in all of these areas were in contiguous forests with a large number of trees.
Sounds
Ivory-billed woodpeckers made a distinctive double-knocking sound when their beaks struck a tree. Ornithologists believe the knocking was used by the bird to announce its presence. The call of the ivory-bill has been likened to the sound produced by a tin horn.
Lord God Bird
Because of the rareness of sighting an ivory-billed woodpecker, coupled with its striking appearance, it has been called the "Lord God Bird." The phrase summed up the exclamation people made when they stumbled across one of the birds. It was also the title of a song by Sufjan Stevens.