The ivory-billed woodpecker is the largest woodpecker in the United States. It was thought to have gone extinct in 1944, but a few birders were reporting sightings of the species. In April 2004, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology led a search in the swampy forests of Arkansas in hopes of finding evidence of this revival.

The search came back with this video, which they believed proved the woodpecker's continuing existence. In the spring of 2005, they published their findings in Science magazine. Then the Federal Government committed $10 million dollars to the conservation of the species, including research, habitat protection, and law enforcement.

A New York Times article from April 2005 gives a taste of those heady days of discovery:

Their announcement on Thursday brought rejoicing among birdwatchers, for whom the ivory bill has long been a holy grail - a creature that has been called the Lord God bird, apparently because that is what people exclaimed when they saw it.

But now the finding has been tarred with doubt. David Sibley, author of "The Sibley Guide to Birds," believes that the video actually shows a pileated woodpecker, a widespread and apparently not as good species that looks similar, but is smaller. From a National Geographic article:

The skeptics say that the extensive white feathers that seem to be on the bird's back in the video—an ivory-bill characteristic—are actually the underside feathers of a pileated woodpecker's wings.

The Cornell team stands by their identification, but everyone's hoping that further research will lead to clearer findings (or as Luneau says, "additional hard evidence").