At around twenty inches in length, the ivory-billed woodpecker (Campephilus principalis) was North America's largest woodpecker. Never a common bird, it once haunted virgin cyprus swamps and bottomland forests throughout the southeastern U.S. By the end of the nineteenth century its imminent extinction was feared, and the last confirmed sighting was in the late 1950's. Sporadic events since that time point to the possibility that some of these birds may still endure: a handful of questionable photographs, numerous unconfirmed sightings, and a 2002 recording of what may have been the drumming of an ivorybill made in Louisiana by a team from Cornell University.
Incidental creatures in the painting include a zebra butterfly (Heliconius charitonius), a green anole (Anolis carolinensis) and palm warblers (Dendroica palmarum).