'Extinct' bird a hot talk topic

The audience was silent as biologist Ron Rohrbaugh cued the video.

More than 100 people had crowded into the Blue Heron Center at Quiet Waters Park near Annapolis to see the images, and suddenly what they were looking for was right in front of them on a large screen: a black-and-white flash moving through the trees in an Arkansas swamp.

Murmurs of "oh," "wow" and "gosh" rippled through the crowd as the elusive and mesmerizing ivory-billed woodpecker briefly danced before their eyes.

Mr. Rohrbaugh showed the video over and over at slow speeds and zoomed in. And most in the room seemed convinced that the mysterious bird is...