During the past several decades, there have been many reports of sightings of the\nivory-billed woodpecker (Campephilus principalis), but nobody has managed to obtain a clear photo,\nwhich is regarded as the standard form of evidence for documenting birds. A study was conducted\nin the Pearl River swamp in southeastern Louisiana to test the feasibility of searching for this elusive\nspecies and surveying its habitat using a DJI Phantom 3 Professional drone with a 4 K video camera.\nDrone images are of much higher quality than images that were previously obtained at much greater\nexpense during flights in a Cessna 172. The approach was found to be effective for searching for\nand inspecting trees that are potential foraging sites for woodpeckers and that might be suitable for\nnest and roost cavities. Large woodpeckers in flight are identifiable in video footage obtained from\nan altitude of 40 m, which was found to be sufficient to reliably avoid collisions with trees in the\nstudy area.
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