KELSEYVILLE – The Redbud Audubon Society will meet on Thursday, Nov. 19, at 7 p.m. at the Kelseyville High School Auditorium, 5480 Main St., Kelseyville. Guest speaker will be Bob Keiffer, superintendent, U.C. Hopland Research and Extension Station.

Keiffer, a long-time local birder was part of a volunteer search team, organized by Cornell University in 2004 to look for the ivory-billed woodpecker. The third largest woodpecker in the world, the ivory-billed had been assumed to be extinct.

But in 2004 and 2005 15 credible sightings were reported by Cornell experts. Over the next few years, Cornell organized numerous volunteer search teams to look for the bird and document it in photographs.

Keiffer spent two weeks in 2007 canoeing and wading through the flooded bottomland forest of the Cache River and White River National Wildlife Refuges hoping to catch a glimpse of the legendary bird. The species was last documented in 1938 and by the 1970s this bird was assumed extinct by the ornithological world.

Did Keiffer see any ivory-billed woodpeckers? Come to the program to find out, to hear his story, and to see photos of other wildlife from those wet woodlands that he searched. Keiffer will give a Power Point presentation sharing his stories, wildlife photos, the history of the ivory-billed woodpecker, the story of the species decline, and a summary of evidence that supports the species existence.

The public is invited to join Redbud Audubon for this fascinating presentation. For more information about the society, go to www.redbudaudubon.org .