For the story of the extraordinary discovery of the Ivory-billed woodpecker, I'll leave you in the capable hands of Carl Zimmer.

My bird is a little less rare but I hope none the less delightful in a modest sort of way:

(Image courtesy USGS)

That's the killdeer, which tends to show up about this time every year in the urban wetland created in a big bend of the concrete flood control channel near my house.