Ok, so its a slow day and I was thinking about the days of my ill gotten youth and the memories of two incidents I had many years ago involving large birds that were not supposed to exist.
First, let me say that my mother was a full blood Yaqui who grew up outside of Tucson. As a child, she told me about many of the native legends including the sacred legend of the Big Bird. Other tribes have similar legends and the famous Thunderbird image we see on Southwestern art and jewelry is an outgrowth of that. As a young man I read some of the stories of encounters with giant birds but none of them had much substance and most fell into the Sasquatch or Chupacabra category.
When I we in my early 20's, my friend and I spent all winter hunting ducks and geese in the Sacramento Valley of California. We would usually hunt over decoys in the morning and then we would road hunt the thousands of acres of wheat and rice fields glassing for geese and stalking them for ambush shooting. One day we were driving along a farm road and we saw three huge birds in the middle of a freshly planted wheat field. The field was almost a mile square with no cover or ditches for a stalk so we sat at a distance of about 700 yards and watched through our 10 X 50 binoculars. The birds were huge and did not look like geese; they were at least twice as large as some of 15 lb Canadian Honkers we had killed many times and they were brown and white, not grey or black. As we watched, the birds noticed us and stuck their necks up full height. After a while, my friend started to walk out in the field and they flew away. I could not believe something that big could take wing but they easily took off and left us there. Through our walkies I had Manuel walk out to the place where the birds had been and face me, then I had him raise his shotgun until I felt it was the same height as the birds' heads. Armpit height was about right on a man who was 6' tall. We talked about that many times and never could figure out what it was. A couple of years ago, I was reading a story about a man's hunting exploits in Spain during the early 1900's and he had a chapter on the Greater Bustard, the largest flying bird in the world. When I googled the Greater Bustard, there was the image of the birds we had seen. The larger ones grow to well over 4 ft high and weight 40 lbs or more. I have no way of knowing how birds that are native to that part of Europe got to the Sacramento Valley, but my memory of that day is just like it happened yesterday instead of more than 40 years ago.
Sometime later, in my late 20's I was deer hunting in the Sierra Nevada mountains and happened to look up and see a huge bird soaring above the tall pine trees. As I watched, it moved in a hunting pattern much like an eagle or hawk, not in the slow lazy air current soaring moves like a buzzard. I had seen many eagles, mostly golden eagles, but this bird was at least twice the size. Through my glasses I could see that the wing and head shape were those of a bird of prey and not like a carrion feeder. We were about 400 miles north of the boundary for condors and I had seen condors before; this bird lacked the characteristic finger like feathers that a condor has at the end of its wings and its flight patterns were very different. I wanted it for about 15 minutes before it soared off over the next ridge. My best guess is that the wing span was more than 8 feet and probably closer to 10 feet. I later worked at a ranch that had a large population of golden eagles and I had a chance to study them closely. My mystery bird looked similar to the eagles only it was twice as large.
Ok, now that I have exposed myself to ridicule, anyone else ever see a strange bird?
First, let me say that my mother was a full blood Yaqui who grew up outside of Tucson. As a child, she told me about many of the native legends including the sacred legend of the Big Bird. Other tribes have similar legends and the famous Thunderbird image we see on Southwestern art and jewelry is an outgrowth of that. As a young man I read some of the stories of encounters with giant birds but none of them had much substance and most fell into the Sasquatch or Chupacabra category.
When I we in my early 20's, my friend and I spent all winter hunting ducks and geese in the Sacramento Valley of California. We would usually hunt over decoys in the morning and then we would road hunt the thousands of acres of wheat and rice fields glassing for geese and stalking them for ambush shooting. One day we were driving along a farm road and we saw three huge birds in the middle of a freshly planted wheat field. The field was almost a mile square with no cover or ditches for a stalk so we sat at a distance of about 700 yards and watched through our 10 X 50 binoculars. The birds were huge and did not look like geese; they were at least twice as large as some of 15 lb Canadian Honkers we had killed many times and they were brown and white, not grey or black. As we watched, the birds noticed us and stuck their necks up full height. After a while, my friend started to walk out in the field and they flew away. I could not believe something that big could take wing but they easily took off and left us there. Through our walkies I had Manuel walk out to the place where the birds had been and face me, then I had him raise his shotgun until I felt it was the same height as the birds' heads. Armpit height was about right on a man who was 6' tall. We talked about that many times and never could figure out what it was. A couple of years ago, I was reading a story about a man's hunting exploits in Spain during the early 1900's and he had a chapter on the Greater Bustard, the largest flying bird in the world. When I googled the Greater Bustard, there was the image of the birds we had seen. The larger ones grow to well over 4 ft high and weight 40 lbs or more. I have no way of knowing how birds that are native to that part of Europe got to the Sacramento Valley, but my memory of that day is just like it happened yesterday instead of more than 40 years ago.
Sometime later, in my late 20's I was deer hunting in the Sierra Nevada mountains and happened to look up and see a huge bird soaring above the tall pine trees. As I watched, it moved in a hunting pattern much like an eagle or hawk, not in the slow lazy air current soaring moves like a buzzard. I had seen many eagles, mostly golden eagles, but this bird was at least twice the size. Through my glasses I could see that the wing and head shape were those of a bird of prey and not like a carrion feeder. We were about 400 miles north of the boundary for condors and I had seen condors before; this bird lacked the characteristic finger like feathers that a condor has at the end of its wings and its flight patterns were very different. I wanted it for about 15 minutes before it soared off over the next ridge. My best guess is that the wing span was more than 8 feet and probably closer to 10 feet. I later worked at a ranch that had a large population of golden eagles and I had a chance to study them closely. My mystery bird looked similar to the eagles only it was twice as large.
Ok, now that I have exposed myself to ridicule, anyone else ever see a strange bird?
