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Chapter 12 Q A Need to Move On Hunting for localities where ivory-bills were, and in these localities trying to find the birds, was like searching for an animated needle in a haystack. —James T. Tanner With the lateness of the season—it was the last week in June—Tanner was feeling the need to move elsewhere. The past several days in the Tensas region had been more or less fruitless; even the John’s Bayou family of three had become increasingly hard to find. While he waited for his car to be repaired, Jim queried Harry Anderson of Chicago Mill and Lumber about the swamplands of the Atchafalaya Basin in south central Louisiana and the names of people who might aid in his search for ivory-bills. Back at camp at Methiglum, Tanner arose early to visit the John’s Bayou trio one more time before his trip south. He was in position at their favored roosting ground when he heard the first bird call at 5:00 am—a soft cape, cape, cape coming from the direction of the female’s favorite sleeping hole. A second bird flew silently overhead to join the first. Thirty minutes and a few more calls later, the birds flew southwest and disappeared. Though brief, the encounter felt good, energizing Tanner. Afterward, he traveled to Foster to work on deadening the trees he had received permission to kill for his impromptu study. The afternoon heat forced him to quit around two o’clock. A fire had already killed a few trees near this section of the white line, and he noted some possible ivory-bill sign. Tanner drove south to Ferriday on Tuesday, June 29, stopping along the way to inquire about possible ivory-bill sightings. He visited Fisher Lumber Company inFerridayandThreeRiversLumberCompanyinJonesville,learningwheretimber had been cut. At a Texaco Station, an avid hunter and fisherman named A. M. Beard recommended that Jim look at Cocodrie Lake and on the east side of the Black River. Over the next couple of days, with more local guidance and advice, Jim made his way into both areas, but saw no ivory-bills and very little promising sign. East of the Black River, the big trees had already been removed, and a timberman reported that he had never seen an ivory-bill there. Rain 124 A Need to Move On finally forced Jim out of the woods, and he drove to Alexandria, where he spent the night. Tanner had now been alone and traveling throughout the southeast for six months; if he was road-weary, he didn’t record it in his field notes. He began July by driving north from Alexandria to Catahoula Lake and then to Saline Lake. Lumbermen at Simmesport knew of few old-growth woods in the Red River area and nothing of ivory-bills. Jim found willow and cottonwood along the river’s banks; the woods in the bottomland were second-growth, mixed slash with large trees removed and overcup oak flats, all of it poor ivory-bill habitat. After a night in Baton Rouge, Tanner drove across the Atchafalaya Swamp to Opelousas. At over half a million acres, the low-lying basin—a combination of lakes, bayous, wetlands, and river delta that surround the Atchafalaya River south to where it converges with the Gulf of Mexico—is the largest swamp in the country. Historically, because of repeated flooding, it was sparsely populated with few roads leading into the region. Today the waters have been “tamed,” with protective levees built along its entire length, corralling the shallow basin, which is roughly 20 miles wide and 150 miles long. In 1937 Tanner’s visit to the Atchafalaya was brief; he was in a reconnaissance mode planning next year’s itinerary. Tanner had scheduled a return to Avery Island, arriving there and meeting with E. A. McIlhenny on July 3. Little had changed since the Cornell Expedition’s 1935 visit to McIlhenny’s Bird City, especially with McIlhenny, who was always eager to talk about birds. He told Jim that ivory-bills had once lived in the swamps extending from Avery Island east to Morgan City, an area about four miles wide and forty-five miles in length. Within that region, McIlhenny believed, the ivory-bills had historically moved around quite a bit. He had seen one ivory-bill in 1937, none the year before that, and two in 1935; however, the last nesting he had observed was around 1927. With most of...

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