See a real Ivory-billed Woodpecker this Thursday, Guaranteed.

I can guarantee you a sighting of a real Ivory-billed Woodpecker this Thursday, March 17th.

Here's the catch. It's dead.

The Bell Museum of Natural History will bring their Ivory-billed Woodpecker out of the collection vault and put it on public display this Thursday for the showing of the film Ghost Bird which is part of the Sustainability Film Series at the Museum's theater.

Thursday is the local premiere of the film which is a documentary about the possible re-discovery of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker.

From the Bell website:
"A Sustainability Film Series local premiere, Ghost Bird is a moving documentary about an elusive giant bird, a small town in Arkansas hoping to reverse its misfortunes, and the tireless odyssey of the bird-watchers and scientists searching for the Holy Grail of birding: the Ivory-billed woodpecker. The film is as much a story about the power of hope as a parable about the forces that drive a species to extinction."

Thursday, March 17, 7 p.m.
Bell Museum Auditorium
Cost: Free to University of Minnesota students with ID
$5 Bell Museum and The Film Society members, non-university students
$8 general public

Immediately following the film there will be a three member panel discussion.

Jim Fitzpatrick, director of Carpenter St. Croix Nature Center and brother of John Fitzpatrick the director of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Jim claims to have seen the woodpecker in Arkansas in 2005.

Carrol Henderson with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources Non-Game Wildlife Program will bring his perspective on habitat and birds.

Ann Kessen, the president of the Minnesota Ornithologists' Union will round out the panel guests.

~Kirk