Scientists play audio recordings of ivory-billed woodpecker

Scientists at an ornithologists conference this week in Santa Barbara, California, played audio recordings of the ivory-billed woodpecker, a bird long thought to be extinct. They said the tapes suggest there might be more than one of the rare birds in a swamp in eastern Arkansas.

There has been controversy over the claim of sightings of the ivory-billed woodpecker since the announcement in April that it had been "rediscovered."

Skeptics said blurry videotape of a bird in flight wasn't enough evidence. But a team of Cornell University researchers sent doubters several recordings of sounds that suggested the bird's existence.

Wednesday was the first time the audio was publicly played -- during the meeting of the American Ornithologists' Union in Santa Barbara, Ca.

Russell Charif, a researcher at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology said: "It is the best tangible evidence so far that there could be more than one ivory-bill in the area."

Scientists said the sounds were similar to ivory-bills.

One recording featured a series of distinctive nasally sounds that ivory -bills make and another captured an exchange of double-rap sounds, which may indicate two ivory -bills communicating with each other.

The ornithologists played their recordings of the ivory-bill woodpecker and then played recordings of related species of woodpeckers in South and Central America for comparison.

Since the woodpecker's rediscovery, U.S. agencies have promised millions to help preserve the bird's eastern Arkansas habitat in and around the Cache River National Wildlife Refuge.