Group Hallucination or Actual Sighting?

What caused an entire town to pin its hopes on the existence of a bird that no one had ever actually seen? How could world-renown ornithology experts confirm the reappearance of bird that had been extinct based on sketchy information?

These are just two conundrums that Scott Crocker's Ghost Bird - which aired Tuesday evening at Vintage House as part of the Valley of the Moon Lecture Series - explores.

The film chronicles the supposed reappearance of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker. In February 2004, a lone kayaker encountered an enormous black and white bird with a long bill, a woodpecker that had been declared extinct in North America for over 50 years.

The “sighting” happened in the Singer Tract, an area of swamp forest in East Arkansas, near the small town of Brinkley. A fuzzy video bears the proof, an image of  what appeared to be a male Ivory-billed Woodpecker. The tape was investigated and a report published in April 2005 by a team led by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology that confirmed the reappearance of the extinct bird and set off a wildfire of excitement.

The Ivory-billed Woodpecker was the largest woodpecker in North America and thrived into the early 1900’s in the primeval-looking swamp forests of Eastern Arkansas in a tract of land owned by the Singer family of Singer Sewing Machine Company fame. Between overly enthusiastic collectors at the start of the 20th century amassing specimens for universities and museums and the devastation of forest habitat destroyed for lumber, the Ivory-billed Woodpecker was doomed to extinction.

While this in itself is a fascinating story of an ecological blunder, what makes the film downright riveting is the cascading events that followed the sighting: announcements by Cornell and the Department of the Interior confirming the bird’s existence, testimonials of other sightings, a media frenzy and the overnight fame of the economically depressed town of Brinkley, Arkansas.

Birders flocked to Brinkley in hopes of getting a look at the rare woodpecker. Gift shops sprung up overnight, motels were renamed in honor of the bird, menus featured woodpecker burgers and a salon in town offered a woodpecker haircut.

Many of the residents of this poor southern town believed that the woodpecker sighting was the break they’d been waiting for, the thing that would revive their town and put them back on the map.

The film epitomizes good story telling. It is beautifully shot, well-edited and captures all the drama, humor, and pathos surrounding the discovery. Commentary is balanced featuring well-spoken, recognized bird experts speaking on both sides of the controversy over the reemergence of the woodpecker.

David Sibley, artist and author of the well-known Sibley’s Guides to Birds was one of the first to question the authenticity and correctness of the video footage of the woodpecker that was the primary piece of evidence.  With so many people so excited about the discovery, his was not a popular position to take but Sibley and Ornithologist Richard Prum of Yale University, studied the tape and other evidence, and concluded that it was not an Ivory-billed Woodpecker.

Crocker is not a birder but got interested in the larger story. “Making the film offered me an opportunity to explore things I was already interested in,” he said. “Things like memory and impulse. It deepened my curiosity about humanity and the mind, about the stories we tell ourselves and each other. Why do we want to connect the dots when there are none?”

Ghost Bird is a beautiful, thoughtful and haunting film. It asks the viewer to ponder some difficult questions about what we’re doing to habitats that are home to so many magnificent bird species.

In a Q and A following the film, a woman in the audience commented that the film made her feel sad and asked the Director why he had made such a negative film. 

“I am aware of that aspect,” he said. “At the time I made the film I was processing loss and grief in my own life but I hope you can see something more. I wanted to explore why people needed the hope (that the bird still existed) so desperately. It’s as if we needed a second chance for something we botched. Like the Joni Mitchell song, "You don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone.”

Even though the search for the Ivory-billed Woodpecker has largely been abandoned, one resident of Brinkley interviewed for the film, described the town as now being like Area 51 in Roswell, New Mexico, famed for its supposed UFO sightings. To her, it doesn’t matter if the Ivory-billed Woodpecker is ever seen again. She believes people will come to Brinkley because they hope that maybe, just maybe, they’ll see the bird.

Ghost Bird is available on DVD and can be purchased at Ghostbirdmovie.com or rented through Netflix. The film is also available for special showing at community groups or organizations by contacting the director through the website Ghostbirdmovie.com.