Demise of a Bird Blog

The blog formerly known as the Ivory-bill Skeptic was one of my all-time favorite bird blogs. Judging by the number of “hits” that it generated, I gather that this controversial blog was a favorite of many others as well. Initiated by Minnesota birder Tom Nelson in July 2005 in response to Cornell’s announcement of the “discovery” of an Ivory-billed Woodpecker (Campephilus principalis) in Arkansas, it provided an important outlet in the ensuing debate for people of a skeptical mind regarding the adequacy of the evidence provided in support of the continued existence of the so-called Lord God Bird. While I didn’t always agree with Tom’s assessment of the situation, his methods, or his motives, I generally enjoyed the posts and embedded links and the comments that they engendered.

In mid-September 2007, Tom announced that he was “quite bored with the current Ivory-bill hysteria” and was changing the name of the blog to Tom Nelson, leaving him “free to post about anything that interests me.” Since then, the focus of the blog has gradually switched over from Ivory-bills to the debunking of anthropogenic global warming, as revealed by the following statistics showing the percentage of monthly posting that were specifically about Ivory-bills:

August 2007 – 97.5 percent (39 of 40)

September 2007 – 46.4 percent (26 of 56 postings)

October 2007 – 37.1 percent (33 of 89 postings)

November 2007 – 11.6 percent (29 of 250 postings)

Tom’s Ivory-bill postings are increasingly being lost amongst his growing blather about global warming. He would have done those of us interested in continuing to follow Ivory-bill events, especially the skeptics among us, a great favor by creating a second blog for his rants on global warming.

Martinson Collinson made a similar argument (here) about the Ivory-bill Skeptic/Tom Nelson blog, noting that 37 posts about Ivory-bills in November 2006 generated 450 comments while 247 posts in November 2007 (“nearly all on climate change”) generated just 12 comments. Sadly, while Tom has continued to post about Ivory-bills at only a slightly diminished rate (i.e., 29 in November 2007 vs 37 in November 2006), his focus on global climate change has caused his loyal Ivory-bill skeptic readers to desert him.

Because Tom continues to post occasionally about the Ivory-billed Woodpecker, but especially because of the vast amount of Ivory-bill information still present in his archives, I have decided to retain Tom Nelson on the list of known North American bird blogs.