Gene Sparling tells of the rediscovery of the ivory-billed woodpecker, long thought to have been lost forever.
An amateur naturalist, Sparling had paddled his kayak into Arkansas' Bayou DeView, hoping to see 1,000-year-old trees. "It was a magical place," he recently told a packed auditorium. "Deep and magical, with trees that were very old. I put my paddle down across my lap and leaned back to enjoy the moment, feeling lucky and grateful. And I made a mental note that I wanted to remember that feeling and hold onto it."
"Right at that moment, a very large woodpecker flew toward me," Sparling continued. "It pulled up when it saw me, giving me a glimpse of white-edged wings."
The ivory-billed woodpecker flashed through his mind, but he dismissed the thought as absurd. Everyone knew they'd been extinct since 1944, his whole life, so he couldn't have seen one. But this woodpecker was really big, and its wings had white edges, so it had to be an ivory-billed.
"Around and around, the same thoughts ran," he said, "wearing a groove in my brain."
When he returned from the trip, he posted a report on his canoe club's Web site. He wasn't going to do anything more with the sighting, but a woman who read about it urged him on, telling him he had a duty to report what he had seen.
A 14-month search for the bird ensued. Members of the search team obtained some barely recognizable video, flashes of wide, white-edged wings amid the trees.
Those brief glimpses caught people's imaginations and sparked ambitious plans to protect and restore the vast expanse of forested swamps that the ivory-billed woodpecker once called home.
"I learned two great lessons from this experience," he continued. "I learned to believe that the most wonderful things can happen in this world. And I learned that ordinary people can have an extraordinary impact, beyond our wildest dreams."
As Sparling concluded his tale, the excited crowd leaped up to give him an enthusiastic standing ovation.