Back From Extinction? Reserving Judgment On Ivory-Billed Woodpecker

By Dottie Evans

A father of three and a Newtown resident since 1974, Larry Fischer is a skilled carpenter with a successful career in restoring and reproducing the hand-tooled, antique interior woodwork that graces some of Fairfield County’s oldest houses.

Preserving the best of the past is second nature to him, since he lives in one of the oldest houses in Newtown –– a 1760 Northrop-built home off Route 302.

 Fond as he is of his day job, Mr Fischer admits to being totally absorbed by his lifelong avocation of bird watching. Not only has he counted some 185 species of birds in his own backyard, he is dedicated to identification, rescue, research, and banding of all species of raptors.

“I don’t exactly keep a life list [of species],” he says, “it’s more important to me that I learn about the birds that I see.”

As president of the Western Connecticut Bird Club since 2003, Mr Fischer would like more people to know about the organization that has been active in this area since 1978. The club sponsors  bird walks year round and takes responsibility for running the yearly Woodbury/Roxbury Christmas Bird Count held mid to late December.

“Polly Brody was one of our original members,” Mr Fischer said of the former Newtown resident who is a birdwatcher, naturalist, and poet living now in Southbury.

“The local Audubon chapters look at all of nature with an emphasis on education and conservation. We are strictly a bird watching organization, and our members are people who want to focus solely on birds,” Mr Fischer said during a Bee interview held September 2.

“We have a Redding member, for example, who comes to meetings just to find out about birding trips around the world,” he added.

In the past, the Western Connecticut Bird Club has met in Southbury every third Thursday from September through April (except December). The club plans to continue holding meetings in Southbury beginning January as soon as the town’s library remodeling project is finished. Meanwhile, fall meetings will be held in Woodbury, at the library (September 15) and then at the First Congregational Church (October 20, and November 17).

“The club was founded around the geographic area covered during the Christmas Count. They moved our radius 15 miles to the east, so we could count the eagles at the Shepaug Dam,” he added.

Enraptured With Raptors

Ever since he was a young boy growing up in the Eastern Long Island farm country, Larry Fischer has felt drawn to birds of prey.

“When I was 5 or 6 years old, I read about the American bald eagles disappearing from Florida and Alaska. Aside from my teenage years when baseball and girls took over, I grew up with a dream that someday I would see an eagle in the wild,” he said.

“My most exciting bird find was the first verified nesting of Cooper’s hawks in the state during the post-DDT years,” he added.

In 1979 after moving to Newtown and beginning his career in carpentry, Mr Fischer met veteran  Newtown bird watcher Neil Currie at a Lillinonah Audubon Society meeting.

“Neil mentioned to the group that the eagles were back at Shepaug Dam and he told me about the Western Connecticut Bird Club. Two years ago, I finally did travel to Alaska and saw the eagles there, as well,” Mr Fischer said.

After years of study and many, many hours in the field, Mr Fischer has gained a deep knowledge of raptors. He has also become a federally licensed bird bander with a specialty in birds of prey.

“One method we use to catch raptors is mist nets. But there are other methods that are trade secrets,” he said, refusing to describe them for fear that people would use them to trap and cage wild birds.

“Kids want a pet hawk or a pet owl like Harry Potter has,” he said.

Banding records are shared among ornithologists and they enable those who study raptors to learn more about the species.

“Where did it come from? Where did it go? How did it get there? Where did it go back to? and How long did it live? These are the questions we are trying to find answers for.”

Asked about recent, reputed sightings of the ivory-billed woodpecker presumed extinct for the past 60 years, Mr Fischer’s outlook was guarded.

“I have to say I am skeptical until proven wrong,” he noted.

“It’s not an absolute yet. Not 100 percent sure. They waited an entire year to announce the find, and it’s hard to imagine with all the birdwatchers that have been looking for this bird in the swamp forests of eastern Arkansas, there hasn’t been a verified sighting.”

A verified sighting would involve two individuals making a positive identification during a single sighting and taking a clear photograph for added proof.

“If this really was an ivory-bill that they saw, I think it was a dispersing young. A southern bird migrating northward. They should be looking 100 miles south of where it was seen for the breeding pair,” he said.

“As for the taps on the trees that they’ve heard or the calls they’ve recorded, well, they could be something else. We don’t know for sure.”

The possibility of a hoax is always out there, Mr Fischer added.

Putting aside tantalizing speculation about the ivory-billed woodpecker’s rediscovery, Mr Fischer preferred to talk about what he knows for sure––the raptors. The annual hawk migration is taking place right now in the skies over Connecticut, and he will be among those dedicated hawk watchers  who stand out in the open fields and count the species as they stream by.

“The last few years, we’ve had a northeasterly wind that has pushed the flight inland, so our counts haven’t been that good.”

Larry Fischer’s usual watch post is a hillside in Huntington State Park in Redding.

“They’re seeing them already at Lighthouse Point Park in New Haven, and I’m going out birding as soon as this interview is over,” he said with an eager glance outside at the clear blue sky.

A light wind was blowing out of the north––perfect weather for counting hawks.