Is that an ivory-billed woodpecker that I don't see before me?

In the whole of the world the ivory-billed woodpecker is probably the most loved creature that probably doesn't exist.

Perhaps there are still a few of them deep in the Big Woods forest of eastern Arkansas when this great rap-rapping creature, also known as the Lord God woodpecker after the reaction of everyone who thinks they have seen it, was allegedly spotted by admirers in 2005. Safer perhaps to stick to the last reliable sighting made in 1944.

There are many plaintive accounts of this b...