In Search Of The Ivory-Billed Woodpecker

Robot hunts ‘the Elvis of extinct birds’

The world’s first robotic twitcher has been deployed to one of America’s most inhospitable swamps to join the search for the holy grail of birdwatching: an iconic woodpecker so rare that it was thought to be extinct for more than half a century.

The ivory-billed woodpecker, sometimes known as the Lord God bird because of its spectacular plumage, had last been spotted in 1944 before a possible sighting of a bird with its markings was reported in the Cache River national wildlife reserve, in Arkansas, in February 2004.

Robotic cameras join search for 'Holy Grail of bird-watching'

Developed by researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, and Texas A&M University, the high-resolution intelligent robotic video system installed in the Bayou DeView area of the Cache River National Wildlife Refuge in Arkansas is part of a major effort to locate the ivory-billed woodpecker in its historic habitat, the bottomland forests of the southeast United States.

If the researchers obtain conclusive photographic evidence of the woodpecker, it will settle a debate that has become heated in recent years and fascinated millions of people around the world, from bird-watchers and environmentalists to Arkansas farmers and duck hunters.


The robotic camera system developed by researchers at UC Berkeley and Texas A&M University is installed in the Bayou DeView area of the Cache River National Wildlife Refuge in Arkansas. The system is part of a major effort to locate the famed ivory-billed woodpecker. Credit: Photo courtesy of Dezhen Song, Texas A&M University
In the meantime, the new robotic video system provides detailed video sequences of other birds, suggesting a new high-tech approach to doing field biology work.