Note the distinctive wing pattern, states self proclaimed bird expert, James Gilroy

The news has stunned ornithologists worldwide, with the evidence suggesting that the dodo could also be rediscovered.

Members of punkbirder began an intense year-long search in the Norfolk marshes, before the irrefutable photographic evidence was gained (see above, right).

The find has ignited hope that any "extinct" bird can be resurrected provided enough people search in unlikely places.

'Finding Elvis'

"This find is so significant that it is really difficult to describe," Elvis Presley, of the Searching To Resurrect Ivory-billed woodpeckers in Norfolk Group (STRING), told BBC News. "We hope to rediscover the Great Auk shortly too."

Benny Hill, of the RSPB, added: "This is huge, just huge. It is kind of like finding that Elvis is dead."

The "stunning" red, white and black woodpecker was formerly distributed across the south-eastern United States and Cuba, but has now been found to have relocated to East Anglia's grazing marshes and agricultural hinterlands.

I have to admit, I was wrong all along... Tim Allwood, Birdforum sceptic

By the 1920s, it was assumed to be extinct, although, in 1944, there was one more confirmed sighting in North America of a lonely male, paired with a female Piliated Woodpecker. Brief views of the bird in question confirm that it differed from a female Piliated Woodpecker. "This provides clear evidence that the bird was an Ivory-billed", confirms newly appointed BBRC chairman Peter Stringfellow (see photos below).

Since then, decades of searches yielded nothing and hope gradually faded away.

However, following recent intensive searches by the punkbirder team, it was found that the bird is in fact relatively abundant in Norfolk, feeding in dense flocks in flooded grazing marsh in areas such as Buckenham, Berney and Halvergate Marshes. "We obtained numerous sightings of birds with white on the wings". "This proves that Ivory-billed Woodpeckers are common", says Dan Brown. Richard Moores adds "we've had so many recent records that I've stopped putting the news out through Rare Bird Alert".

The last confirmed sightings were of a male paired with a female Piliated in the '30s and '40s

By adapting the complex modeling approach used by Cornell University, the punkbirder team hope to film shots of cardboard cut-outs and gain greater insight into its flight patterns and behavior, explains Rob Martin.

Among the world's largest woodpeckers, the ivory-bill is one of six North American bird species suspected or known to have gone extinct since 1880. It is hoped that others will be discovered in East Anglia, particularly after the recent sighting of the extinct Slender-billed Curlew at Minsmere.

It also reduces the incentive to protect the habitat of the ivory-bill, as well as other birds. "If birds such as the Ivory-billed Woodpecker can adapt their habitat use then there is probably no need to conserve the Brazilian rainforests" confirms Alex Lees, punkbirder resident expert on Amazonian avifauna. "Farmland is the new rain forest" adds Simon Mahood. "In 50 years time we'll be lamenting the loss of Brazilian farmland species".

"Many birds found in places threatened by humans have modified there habitat use to capitalise on the existance of extensive agricultural land" states James Gilroy, who's much acclaimed PhD research shows that Yellow Wagtails have been "trapped" into using potato fields.

"For those of us who tenaciously cling to the idea that extinct species can be re-discovered, this provides a new way."