Imperial Dreams: When Ornithology Grew Up

Sunday, March 2, 2025

When Ornithology Grew Up

This past December I wrote an article for Smithsonian magazine about one of my favorite birds, the Ivory-billed Woodpecker, and one of my favorite ornithologists, Arthur A. Allen, who was also fascinated by this bird—which may or may not still exist. (I had an unmistakable sighting in 2004, so I'm firmly in the believers' camp.) Here's how the article looked in the print edition, below. Or you can read it on the magazine's website at this link. Enjoy!

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About Me

I'm the author of six books, including my latest, Born to Fish (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; May 2018) about world-class angler Greg Myerson and his conservation efforts on behalf of the striped bass.

My other recent book is Imperial Dreams, about my search for the Imperial Woodpecker of Mexico, the largest woodpecker that ever lived. Two feet in length, with the deepest black plumage and brilliant, snow-white flight feathers that showed as a white shield on its lower back, the Imperial Woodpecker lived only in the high country of northwestern Mexico. The last documented sighting of the species took place in 1956, and many scientists have already written the bird's epitaph. But stories persist of lone Imperial Woodpeckers flying yet over the most remote pine forests of the Sierra Madre.

I began searching for these birds about ten years ago and interviewing people who remembered seeing them. It was tough. The mountains have become a major center of drug growing where you often encounter AK-47-toting drug traffickers and other dangerous people.