How Would YOU Like To Aruge With A Bird That Registers 9...ON THE REICHTER SCALE?!

News flash: Texas has been treated to a rash of giant bird sightings!

http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/kens5/iteam/stories/MYSA111507.bird.kens.7e017e4.html

Now, being as this is Texas, my first reaction was to say that what these people have been seeing is a bottle of Jack Daniels, (*Ducks To Avoid The Flying Toaster That An Angry Texan Has Just Thrown At Him*) but I did a little digging.

My decreped copy of Cryptozoology: A to Z has this to say on giant birds:

"The 'Big Bird' that overflew the Rio Grande Valley in January 1976 got its name from the Sesame Street character [In other news, water is wet]. Witnesses described it as, however, less amiable than its television counterpart. Some called it 'horrible looking.' It was at least five feet tall, with wings folded around its body and large red eyes on a 'gorilla-like' face. While it may have been big, it hardly seemed a bird.

When Alverico Guajardo of Brownsville, Texas, encountered it on the evening of January 7,1976, he thought it looked something like a giant bat. A week later, at Raymondville, Armando Grimaldo heard a 'sound like the flapping of batlike wings and a funny kind of whistling.' Suddenly big claws gripped his back and ripped his shirt. The assailant was flying creature with leathery skin. It had a monkey-like face, but unlike the creature reported by Guajardo, it had no beak. Grimaldo fled under a tree, and the creature flew away.

Sightings like these arose out of murky folk traditions about a large evil bird that sometimes attacks people During the Big Bird scaretheorists ascribed the sightings to various conventional causes, such as great blue herons and pelicans. There is good reason to believe that at least some reports can be so explained, though they do not fit the profile for the more exotic sightings, like Guajardo's or Gimaldo's."

But wait, there's more. The same book also mentions "Thunderbirds."

I have no interest in directly quoting two full pages on Thunderbirds, but the gist of it is that birds related to the Andean condor (the largest known "soaring bird").

So what is flying over Texas? I don't know. But take my advice: the next time you happen to find yourself in th Lone Star state, stick with the crowds, stay near buildings or trees or anywhere you can get cover, and most of all, keep your eyes to the skys...

Good night, everyone, and good luck.

The Night Stalker