10 Evaluation of extra-limital movement in the Large-billed Tern.

Evaluation of extra-limital movement in the Large-billed Tern

10  Evaluation of extra-limital movement in the Large-billed Tern

An evaluation of the extra-limital movements of a South American species having been well documented serves as a good demonstration and example of a pattern which I similarly attribute to the Andean Condor.  The Large-billed Tern Phaetusa simplex has been recorded throughout North America as a vagrant.  Such records of its dispersal away from its principal breeding distribution of the Amazon basin date back to 1908 and, in the United States, to 1949.  In addition to having been reported in the United States, the Large-billed Tern has also been recorded in Chile, Clipperton atoll, Panamá, Nicaragua, Grenada, Trinidad and Tobago, Cuba, and Bermuda. 

Further review of its movements add the following to this list:  Ecuador (former breeding in western provinces, extirpated), Costa Rica, Honduras, Margarita and other offshore Venezuelan islands, and Aruba.

RECENT REPORTS FROM FLORIDA

The Large-billed Tern also deserves consideration in wake of the recent reports of no fewer than two separate individuals, cases of vagrants, in different parts of the state of Florida.  The ongoing observations of each of these terns mark the first instance of the genus in the United States in thirty-five years.  The matter came to my attention the day after both of these sightings, which, in different areas of the state, happened to be concurrent; just glancing at the image from the American Birding Association website (Kyle Matera) without yet reading the details, I at once recognized the deep yellow of the large, oversized beak of this bird, its black cap falling over the eyes, and the black remiges as telltale signs that representatives of this enigmatic species had been sighted a continent away from their breeding grounds.

Phaetusa simplex chloropoda in Florida:  2023

Brevard Co.  June 1–11, 15, 17–18, 22; July 1 [erroneous]; Aug. 24

Indian River Co. (perhaps same individual as for adjacent Brevard Co.)  July 1–2, 4–7, 13–17, 20–21, 27–28; August 8; September 16

Collier Co.  June 1–7, 9–11, 13–14, 16, 18, 21–25, 27–28, 30; July 2–4, 6–9, 14–19, 21–24, 26, 28–29, 31; August 1–2, 5–7, 9–21, 23, 25–31; September 4, 7, 10–13, 18–19, 21, 23–24, 26–27, 29; October 2

https://www.aba.org/rare-bird-alert-june-2-2023/

The individual in Brevard County, Florida, shows bright yellow and in my opinion is the subspecies P. s. chloropoda.

There is at least one bird in Collier County, Florida, which is still being reported.  (For about a day, there were originally two of them.)  This continuing bird has a noticeable darker gray on its back and also a dusky tip on its yellow beak. The black of the cap is limited to the hindcrown with some indistinct gray on the crown itself.

Though the International Ornithological Congress now recognizes this species as monotypic, it is useful to consider the provenance of birds from remote areas of South America, and much of the population occurs in the southernmost part of its distribution (Cornell Lab, “Birds of the World”).

Prior Reports from the United States

New Jersey, 1988  (May 27–30)  Hudson County, Kearny Marsh

https://sora.unm.edu/sites/default/files/journals/nab/v043n05/p01275-p01276.pdf

It is suggested that the New Jersey sighting was of the chloropoda subspecies, and it had a paler back; however, as their assessment was not categorical to chloropoda, they assert that the previous sightings in the United States refer to the nominate form.

This vagrant, an adult, was photographed in color by P. A. Buckley.

Ohio, 1954  (May 29)  Mahoning County, Evans Lake

https://sora.unm.edu/sites/default/files/journals/nab/v033n05/p00727-p00727.pdf

The sighting in Ohio was of a bird with a “yellow” beak and a darker back; it is not clear to what subspecies it is referring. 

A drawing was supplied by Vincent P. McLaughlin

Illinois, 1949  (July 15–about July 24)  Cook County, Lake Calumet

https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/318407#page/370/mode/1up

The Lake Calumet sighting in Illinois was a bird of the subspecies P. s. chloropoda, which occurs in the southernmost part of its distribution in Argentina and southern Brazil and shows paler gray above and primuline yellow on the beak and feet.  This was the first record of a living, vagrant Large-billed Tern.

The illustration was by Richard Zusi.  The individual appears to be a non-breeding bird based on the sketch therein (page 4). 

“How the tern got to Chicago is anybody’s guess.  Robert Bean of the Brookfield zoo, and Fred Meyer of the Lincoln Park zoo, declare that it was not an “escapee” from their collections.  It might have been carried across the Caribbean by wind currents and continued up the Mississippi and Illinois river valleys to the Calumet area. The habitat is similar to its native one–it’s just on the wrong continent.”  (Janet H. Zimmermann, The Audubon Bulletin [Illinois Audubon Society], 71:5)

PATTERNS

These records show an obvious pattern, that the Large-billed Tern is given in its extreme extra-limital movements to occur during the northern late spring and early summer.  As of writing, the individual in Collier County, Florida (Eagle Lakes Community Park), is still present, well into the beginning of autumn, though its initial arrival conforms well to the argument.  The following accounts from elsewhere are also consistent.

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REPORTS FROM BERMUDA, THE CARIBBEAN, AND CENTRAL AMERICA

Bermuda

There is also a Bermuda specimen collected by David Wingate in 1961 (June 4 (or June 14th) at Spittal Pond.

Cuba

A living example of the Large-billed Tern was reported on April 8, 2019 in Cuba’s southern coast in the town of Guanimar (Artemisa province).  Garrido and Kirkconnell in Field Guide to the Birds of Cuba (2000) provide two other records of it, prior to their publication, however these include one specimen which was not dated.  The other, also a specimen, was dated May 28, 1910.  It is not clear which subspecies was represented by any of these three, yet it is significant to note the close proximity of the country to the southern tip of Florida.

Aruba

As with other information I have ascertained about the species’ extra-limital movements, I have heavily consulted eBird (www.ebird.org) to better understand the subject.  Another valuable resource is the research report published in the Journal of Caribbean Ornithology (24(2):75) by Anthony White and Anthony Jeremiah.  Not far from the northern tip of South America is the island of Aruba, which, due to its proximity to the distribution and habitat of the more northerly, nominate subspecies of this tern, yields just one record of its occurrence, that of a specimen which was collected May 12, 1908.  It is not clear to me if this skin is, indeed, of the nominate subspecies, but it may be worth considering that it could be.

Grenada  

On the southern tip of the island, an individual was seen and photographed.  It was present May 31, 2010 and the following day.  The details of this find were published in White & Jeremiah (see above).  The authors state that the sighting was the eleventh of such reports of the Large-billed Tern away from either Panamá or coastal South America.  Having seen the images of the individual from Grenada, and I am unable to determine how bright is the yellow of the beak, nor do the images give a clear view as to the paleness of the gray of the back.  As with the Aruba specimen, I can suspect that it may be a representative of the nominate subspecies given the proximity of the island to the northern part of the main continent where P. s. simplex is resident.

See also North American Birds (64(3):512, with black-and-white images, and 64(4):657) for more information.

Honduras  

On April 28, 2003, one was identified as far north as Honduras.  This bird was seen on the coast of Gracias a Dios department in the northeast section of the country and situated along the Caribbean Sea.  North American Birds 57:415 is the source which I consulted.

Costa Rica

The same source for Honduras also lists a first report for Costa Rica, where one was seen Río Tortuguero Lagoon (Limón), March 10–15, 2003.  This was not the same individual, but the location is also located on the Caribbean side of the country.  (Depending on the source, there may be some confusion as to the year of record for this as well as the Honduran sighting; neither occurred during 2002.)

The Large-billed Tern was also seen in Costa Rica, also along the coast of the province of Limón, on June 13, 2007.  (Bulletin of the British Ornithologists’ Club 130(4):240.)

Nicaragua  

The earliest report from Nicaragua dates to December 8–10, 2012 on the southern Caribbean coast of the country.  There were also reports the following year, on August 3–4 and August 11, 2013, along the shores of Lago Cocibolca.  Having become familiar with an image of one of these vagrants sighted along this latter locality, I can see that the back is dark, not pale, gray, and, therefore, it represented the nominate subspecies.  It was in non-breeding plumage.

Panamá  

The date of the earliest record of Phaetusa from the Republic of Panamá is, ironically, recent, much more so than those for the United States or Cuba.  Along the Río Matasnillo an individual was seen on August 18, 1984 by Howard Laidlaw.  A quarter of a century passed before the next was sighted, but not photographed, on Gatún Lake, on February 26, 2009.  Near the Gulf of Parita, which is on the Pacific side of the country, another was seen, on April 11, 2011.  A storm was the likely cause of the appearance of a flock of fourteen terns which passed by Palmas Bellas on August 18, 2012. 

There is a record of one along the Río Chagras dated February 29, 2016.  It was along the same watercourse, the following year on February 14, that a Large-billed Tern was actually photographed in Panamá for the first such instance.  It was a non-breeding tern with an off-yellow beak and a dusky gray back.  I wonder that perhaps it was the same recurring individual that had been reported, but not photographed from the previous year?  Clearly it shows that this vagrant was of the nominate race.  It was present to at least March 30, 2017.  

During the same month, another bird was seen on the country’s southern coast, the Calzada de Amador, on February 18.  Two individuals were photographed together on La Jagua marsh the following summer (August 19–September 3), and they were in non-breeding plumage and show bright yellow beaks and pale gray backs; I will go so far as to ascribe these as representative of the subspecies chloropoda, although no prior discussion suggests my identification.  

A bird was described as having a beak that was “amarillo pálido y grande” near to the Gulf of Parita on August 7, 2020.  However, the coloration of the back was not mentioned, and I cannot assume to which subspecies it belonged.  Last winter, there was what is now the most recent sighting of one in the county, along the Río Chucunaque, on February 16; the area is close to the border with Colombia, where many of these terns are resident.  

Trinidad and Tobago

They are regularly found as a resident genus on Trinidad, where terns were collected there from 1903, but the earliest report of a sighting of a living one on Tobago dates back only to June 10, 2012.

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SOUTH AMERICA

Isla de Margarita, Isla de Coche, and Isla La Tortuga (Venezuela)

Non-breeding terns have been reported on Isla de Margarita since 1987, and other records have emerged dating from the following years:  1994–1996, 2000, 2010, 2014–2016, 2018, and 2021–2022.

Ecuador

In the western, coastal area of Ecuador it may occur, but no longer as a breeding species as it has been extirpated there.  However, according to the SACC (South American Classification Committee), it is still a resident species in the country.

Chile

The provenance of a specimen from San Antonio is questionable.  It was allegedly collected from this central province of Chile and was dated August 17, 1872.  In Chile the Large-billed Tern is listed as Hypothetical by the SACC.  However, there is a CONFIRMED eBird report from March 16, 2009 of a sighting of at Azapa Sobraya (Arica province).

This accounts also for information provided by VertNet (portal.vertnet.org).

[Clipperton atoll

Clipperton atoll is a remote island located some distance from the southern Pacific coast of México.  There are no records of the Large-billed Tern from this island.  The presence of one, so far north as this from its main distribution, would be remarkable.  I will mention it here as I was given to erroneously believe that such a record did exist.  I can also see how some sources can be misleading, in their prose, by mentioning the tern along with information about another species, the Dark-billed Cuckoo Coccyzus melacoryphus, which was reported from Nicaragua and has been established as a vagrant to Clipperton.  

https://ebird.org/camerica/news/new-species-for-ebird-central-america-dark-billed-cuckoo

I consulted the journal Condor (66:357, Stager (1964)), and there is no reference therein to the genus Phaetusa.]

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BREEDING DISTRIBUTION

Phaetusa simplex nests throughout South America in Colombia, Venezuela, Brazil, Guyana, Suriname, Peru, Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Argentina.  I also recognize, contra the SACC, that it nests in French Guiana and is not simply a non-breeding visitant; many sources reinforce this view.

To recognize two races, as I do, would place the boundary of these as follows. 

Sterna [Phaetusa] simplex  J. F. Gmelin

The distributional areas of South America in the Amazon and Orinoco basins north of those of which subspecies chloropoda would be found.  It excludes the Andes.

Sterna [Phaetusa simplex] chloropoda  Vieillot

Basins of Río Paraguay and Río Paraná to northern Argentina.  In addition to Argentina, this also includes the genus’ entire southern breeding distribution.

(In being comprehensive, I will also remark on the names given to this species which are no longer valid.  They all were originally placed in Sterna and in the early nineteenth century.  They are brevirostris Vieillot, magnirostris Lichtenstein, and “speculifera” Lesson, the last being a name of doubtful ascription (Catalogue of the Birds in the British Museum, 25:23).  The importance of these three names lies in an evaluation of the respective descriptions of each of them and may yield further argument as to an association of plumage variation to geographic distribution.)

The races are regarded as clinal by the International Ornithological Congress (2014), and, thus, Phaetusa is now being treated as having a single, monotypic species as well as being a monotypic genus.  Clinal variation is when populations, in this case those of the Large-billed Tern, show intergradation and, therefore, lack the impetus to be treated separately.  Firstly, I feel that there are two populations which are distinctive morphologically and are, thus, separate.  Secondly, it may not matter whether it is appropriate to recognize one or two subspecies; it is evident to me that the southernmost birds of the race chloropoda do show this variation, and, as I will explain below in my concluding comments, are largely responsible for the appearance of this species in North America and elsewhere.

In Rare Birds of North America (Howell, Lewington & Russell; 136) the authors discuss subspeciation of the Large-billed Tern.  They state that it is “not known to be separable in the field… [E]quatorial breeders average slightly darker upperparts than s. breeders…”

Emmet R. Blake (Manual of Neotropical Birds 1:648) asserted the opposite, that chloropoda represented those birds with darker gray backs.  This opinion has not been upheld where the tern has been treated as polytypic.

Map of the Río de la Plata.  (Karl Musser)

The above map reveals the details of the distribution of the Large-billed Tern Phaetusa simplex chloropoda.  In Brazil, this would include the states of Mato Grosso, Goiás, Minas Gerais, and states south of this region not on the Atlantic coast.  It would also include the Distrito Federal but, as respects its breeding range, not the states of Espírito Santo and Rio de Janeiro.

MIGRATION

Phaetusa simplex is by its nature a tropical species (much unlike the Andean Condor).  It is not necessarily given to migrate, but when the breeding season has concluded they are known to disperse.  This dispersal would be to coastal areas throughout much of South America.  It is, in that sense, a migratory species.  See my comments in the last three paragraphs of this post.

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MOVEMENTS OF LARGE-BILLED TERN AS RELATES TO MOVEMENTS OF ANDEAN CONDOR

The above information has revealed many details gathered together on a bird that is not at all like the Andean Condor in habits and appearance other than the fact that it is a distinctive South American avian entity.  From the many various records on its extra-limital appearances north of the continent to an evaluation of its variation and debate over whether it is a species that is polytypic, it may be assumed that there is important relevance to that species of diurnal raptor and scavenger which comprises the subject of these posts.  There is, as I will explain.

I wanted to write a separate piece about the Large-billed Tern in relation to the Andean Condor because it is to a certain source that I owe some inspiration.  That work is the Smithsonian Birds of North America (Fred J. Alsop, ed., (2000)) and the profile of the former species, therein, on page 426.  There is a colored illustration of the tern by Svetlana Belotserkovskaya with a map of its distribution in North America, and I found that this latter feature was compelling.  Here, this South American bird, which nests only on that continent, had been only known, at the time of the book’s publication, in three states–all of which are in the north of the country–yet no where else.  While looking at this book, decades ago, I felt intrigued because I had become familiar with the reports of the “Thunderbird” of Illinois, which I evaluated in a previous post of The Unknown Andean Condor (UAC5).  One of the locations where the Large-billed Tern was known was Chicago, very close to the same locality as that of mysterious giant birds.

I am not arguing that the movements of the Large-billed Tern have a direct nor special relationship with that of the Andean Condor.  The latter should not necessarily be expected, also, if the tern appears anywhere as a vagrant.  The Large-billed Tern, like the condor, is an aerialist.  It is given to great movements of flight and covers large distances.  However, in the tern there are a multitude of legitimate, authentic records of its extra-limital movement; in the condor, much is wanting by way of substantiating its own records, which motivates me to write about both of them.  The southernmost subspecies of Large-billed Tern, P. s. chloropoda, as I have described above, undergoes some type of migration.  It is difficult to say whether this holds in the nominate subspecies, but the point is that many of the records of the tern elsewhere, most notably its first record of appearance in the United States, allude to chloropoda, which is intriguing.

It is an irony that those terns which represent this race, and not the nominate simplex, are those subject to the most displacement away from southern South America, occurring in areas that are so far removed from its distribution; whereas, there are actually fewer, if any, records of the nominate in the United States, its distribution including those regions of northern South America which are much greater in area of expanse and which are closer to North America itself.  Probably many of the records of its extra-limital movements from the Caribbean islands and Central America will show that the nominate can also be given to some evident vagrancy.  

With regards to chloropoda occurring anywhere, these are the terns which are more likely to disperse because they occupy habitats which undergo more seasonal change, particularly in those areas in southern Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Argentina.  In their movements, some birds may be given to what is called a misorientation.  They may fly towards the more tropical areas of the Amazon during the northern spring, but rather than returning to their original localities, the birds may “err” and go further north.  They may continue this way until they reach a suitable stopping point, which may be, as the records make plain, as far as Lake Calumet in Illinois or Lake Evans in Ohio.  I find it rather fitting that they may be found there because these areas are in some respects parallel to that of southern South America and are not as tropical.  Thus, they disperse until they find a suitable point to stay, by which they can recover.  I am given to write another, separate post on this subject because what I provide here is very much a terse summary of what happens, also, with the Andean Condor.  For that, I have written about the Large-billed Tern. 

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Mathew Louis

Written October 2, 2023.

Image of Large-billed Tern Phaetusa simplex by Charles J. Sharp, Pantanal (Mato Grosso), Brazil.  (I assume that the individual is of the subspecies chloropoda.)

mathewspilllouis

WordPress:  UAC10

Draft, UAC10——–October 18, 2017; 2023:  September 24, 27, 29–30; October 1

9 Review of some Michigan cases as cited in Clark.

Review of some Michigan cases as cited in Clark.

The sources I have consulted in assessing the distribution of the Andean Condor as an accidental species are varied and represent a disparate collection, many of these sources of which are not specially concerned with natural history as they are not catalogued in a library collection with either natural history or ornithological titles.  One book that has provided a storehouse of information in my researches is one which generally concerns the paranormal and is largely devoted to anomalous cases.  It is simply a collection of reprinted newspaper pieces, the greater part of them from the nineteenth century, yet nonetheless it is a collection which has a plenitude to offer in what I feel only further substantiates my arguments.  It is Unnatural Phenomena:  A Guide to the Bizarre Wonders of North America, compiled by Jerome Clark  (ABC-CLIO, Inc.; 2005).

From repeated examination of the materials I came to discover that, however relatively few of the stories make an actual reference to “birds” or similar terms, many of them refer to observations of anomalous entities which I suspect may actually be impressions of Andean Condors.  These, likewise, reveal remarkable details of what would not at first seem to suggest anything avian.  Even after dismissing some stories which I felt were not relevant to my researches did I later reconsider them to find that the anomalous creature described likely or may be a crudely characterized description of a condor.  Overall, I approached the content carefully in making judgment, which has been a difficult task in giving disposition to each piece.

Many of these reports are anecdotal and, as I suggest above, are difficult to assess.  However, I am not going to ignore them in my proceedings on the discussion of the Andean Condor.

Clark assigns the materials according to location, all of these being the contiguous United States and Alaska.  Albeit at random, I selected the material relating to cases from the state of Michigan as the focus of this post.

“Quite a sensation has been created on the Chicago & Lake Huron Railroad, near Olivet, in consequence of a singular apparition which has just made its appearance in that vicinity…[………….]    A spook came out of the wood-pile a few nights since and stopped the eastward-bound train.  It is described as a human form robed in snowy white, and appeared on the track a few rods in advance of the engine.  The engineer blew the whistle, but the mysterious form refused to yield the track.  The train was stopped, and a party went ahead to reconnoiter, when the strange personage retreated, and when they retreated would follow them.  To all questions that were asked it gave no response.  They ordered it off the track, and it refused to budge, when they fired several bullets through its heart, but, instead of crying out, it danced a hornpipe on the rails, and seemed to delight at their discomforture.  Finally the engineer mounted the engine and pulled the throttle, and just as the exasperated engine was about to make mince-meat of the stranger, it disappeared in the air.

“The news soon spread in the vicinity, and the next night farmers and trackmen went to the spot, and, behold!  the strange figure confronted them.  They set dogs on it, who seemed to be grappling with an object, but no blood was found.  The men, armed to the teeth, boldly went forward, but it retreated, and when they receded would follow to a given point.  A party outflanked it, and came upon it to solve the mystery, but it vanished heavenward.

“Not being satisfied, the party went to the spot the next day, when to their horror, an old man robed in black came out of the wood-pile and took his wonted position on the track as if to dispute their passage, his long silvery locks and snowy-white beard floating in the breeze.  The dogs were called into requisition against it, but to no avail.  He carried a death-like smile throughout, and retreated at their advance as before, and, on being surrounded, again vanished heavenward.

“We heard from the scene a couple of days ago, and the country thereabouts is all excitement.  The question is:  Has some old man been murdered and buried there, and this was his apparition?  Certainly it is flesh and blood.  Scores of visitors from other counties have been there and took observations, and all have gone away mystified.  At last accounts no light had been gained as to the strange apparition.”

See Clark, pp. 150–151.  Source:  “A Mysterious Apparition.”  Elyria Republican  (Elyria, Ohio).  May 2, 1878.

Reading the above account, I am given to make the following comments.  The location might be ambiguous, however the actual railroad does pass through Michigan.  The place name, Olivet (Eaton County), is common to communities in both Michigan and Illinois, but as I think that the railroad in question does pass near Olivet, Michigan, I will ascribe it to that state and not challenge the author’s categorical placement for it.  Reading it over, I can clearly see that this is an encounter with a bird, one of a very specific genus, as each time it is described it disappears “in the air” or “heavenward.”  The observers believe that it was a human dressed in black and white and that it had a “snowy-white beard.”  I can readily see that these characters are impressions of an adult Vultur gryphus, especially with respects to the coloration and the ruff of the bird being described as a “beard.”

The entity described is both anomalous and one which can be referred to as that of a large bird.  With that, yes, I believe that it represents a possible record of the Andean Condor in the United States in Michigan.  The rest of these, below, are interesting, but contain reports describing anomalous entities which I cannot ascribe to this species.

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The following account is very ambiguous, but I will mention it as it relates to “flapping of the wings of a bird.”  It is not substantive in its content for me to ascribe any species to it.  The incident occurred in Detroit (Wayne County) on January 31, 1868.

“A gentleman employed at the Detroit and Milwaukee depot states that about 12:45 o’clock yesterday morning he witnessed a most curious phenomenon, which found no parallel in his own experience.  He was passing upward Woodward-avenue, when he suddenly discovered that he was surrounded by a very brilliant light.  The moon was down, the sky was clouded, and there were no street lamps lighted, so that the night was unusually dark.  His first thought was that there was an explosion in the street lamp, under which he was just passing, but looking up he discovered that this could not be.  He then supposed it to be the aurora borealis, but there was none of the well-known characteristics of this illumination of the heavens.  The thought of meteors next occurred to him, but he saw no meteoritic bodies, and the appearance differed altogether from what he had before witnessed when large meteors had fallen in close proximity to him.  The whole city was illuminated as light apparently as day.

“He was looking up the street and saw both buildings and trees, and then turned and looked down, seeing the whole length of the avenue to the river and the Canada shore beyond.  The light lasted from a quarter to half a minute.  He described it as very peculiar.  It was not a flash, nor yet a steady light, but seemed to come in waves, and he could think of no comparison except the flapping of the wings of a bird.  This phenomenon was also witnessed by another person.  A gentleman employed at the Michigan Central was at the time passing along Third-street, near Howard, and his description of the appearance agrees with that given above.  Another gentleman living in the eastern part of the state also witnessed it.  The same phenomenon was also seen at Ypsilanti by a gentleman who became somewhat nervous thereat.”

“Curious Phenomenon Observed in Michigan.”  New York Times, February 3, 1868.  Reprinted from the Detriot Post, February 1, 1868.  See Clark, 149–150.

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Clark (152) paraphrases a Chicago Tribune article about an instance of an observation of an unusual creature seen on Round Island (Mackinac County) in the summer of 1892.  It was also discussed in the journal Pursuit (12(2):50) in 1979 by Gary S. Mangiacopra under the heading “Water Monsters of the Midwestern Lakes.”  One J. Frederick Stevenson asserted to having seen a “huge snake” in the surrounding waters of Lake Huron which was “black and oily” and made a “singular whirring noise.”  Out of the interest of being comprehensive to this study, I will make mention of it, but as I do not have any other details, will not admit it as relevant to a discussion on the Andean Condor.  Perhaps the original text of the the article can be scrutinized further?

The sound of a condor’s wings in flight does give an impression of the movement of a humming or mechanical object, as many other reports also reinforce the same characteristics in those respective observations.  For the witness to describe it as “black and oily” could in the least suggest the impression of the reflective sheen of the condor’s plumage.

Nonetheless, what was being described then was, more likely, an aquatic creature and not an avian entity.

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As a digression, I will allude to two short newspaper articles from nineteenth-century Michigan, but after careful review, I have decided that they do not pertain to sightings of birds and are actually, in substance, alleged observations of snakes.  An untitled piece from the Titusville Morning Herald was published June 13, 1870, and pertains to an incident in Barry County, Michigan (see Clark, 150, “Monster Resembling a Snake”).  The other was “News of the Week” in the Grand Traverse Herald [Grand Traverse, Michigan]; June 19, 1884.  It concerned an incident in Walled Lake (Oakland County), Michigan.

In 1897 an unusual series of events occurred in the state which I find interesting to note yet am not sure as to what to make of them.  The link below alludes to these reports.

https://www.angelfire.com/ma4/oddities/page4.html

Clark on page 153 also quotes an article relating to such an incident in the Montcalm County community of Reynolds Township.  An untitled article was published in the Grand Rapids Evening Press [Grand Rapids, Michigan] for April 16, 1897.  It must be kept in mind that certain persons the country over were trying to perfect models of what would soon become the airplane, particularly in the closing years of the century.  It is very anecdotal and lacks descriptiveness.

“Reynolds, it is claimed, not only had the pleasure of looking at the airship, but several people had the rare good fortune to become acquainted with the navigator.  The thing swooped down from the sky and a half a dozen farmers immediately surrounded it.  While they were examining the strange craft a creature nine and a half feet in height clambered over the side and grew eloquent in an unknown tongue.  One of the farmers hospitably extended his hand, but in the country the visitor comes from this seems to be considered an affront.  The big fellow swung one of his legs and the farmer retired in disorder with a broken hip.  Then the unknown sprang into his aerial craft, turned on some strange power and the whole thing darted away.  There is no still in the vicinity of Reynolds that is known to the revenue authorities and a sharp lookout is being kept for moonshiners.”

See also, on the same page in Clark, a reprint of a newspaper story “Weird Lights,” which appeared in the Detroit Evening News on March 29, 1897 and refers to bright lights seen on lakes near Mills Township, Ogemaw County and which were associated with “the sound of groaning and weeping.”  If it is not a good description of what I think may be a will-o’-the-wisp, it is also ambiguous for categorization as a possible sighting of any genus of large bird.

________________________________________________________________________________

CORRECTION

In UAC7 (“Reprisal of My Evaluation of Bartram”) I referred to the 1865 sighting of King Vultures by Elliot Coues as having occurred in Arizona in “what is now Greenlee County.”  The report relates not to that location but to Coconino County.  The latter includes the San Francisco Peaks, near to where Coues made his alleged observation, but that term can be confused with the San Francisco Mountains of extreme west New Mexico, which straddle the state line into Arizona.

________________________________________________________________________________

Above image detail of an adult female Andean Condor by Trisha Shears

This post was written September 26, 2023.

(draft pages, July 12–28, 2017; September 24, 2023)

8 Criticism of a Recent Title by D’Elia and Haig.

Criticism of a Recent Title by D’Elia and Haig.

 

The sighting of a giant bird as was reported from a syndicated nineteenth-century newspaper article serves as arguably one of the most convincing accounts of an historical record of the Andean Condor’s presence in the United States.  This story, which has been of recent quoted in several instances, serves as the subject of this post.  After carefully considering the content of the piece I feel that the description allows for a diagnostic identification of the Andean Condor Vultur gryphus and that, most importantly, any other ascriptions to a species other than the Andean deserve rejection.

However, no evidence of the bird that was identified was preserved to further substantiate this claim of its occurrence, and the story alone must be relied upon when considering the case.  I feel that the particulars yield a sighting which nonetheless bears consistency in what was described, given the unseemly presence of a condor where it appeared.  By evidence, either a photograph of the individual would have been necessary or the bird itself would have to have been killed to preserve it as a specimen for record, and as neither would be satisfied owing to the momentary appearance of it where it was seen the sighting stands as a hypothetical record in line with similar accounts based on observations alone (such as that of the King Vulture in Arizona [UAC7]).

The text of the story was generally quoted as follows, having appeared in syndication in various newspapers following the sighting, which took place August 15, 1871.  The California location is erroneous.  Winnemucca is a city in Humboldt County, Nevada, however there is a lake by that name near Kirkwood, Alpine County, California and also a dry lakebed near Pyramid Lake, Washoe County, Nevada.

“Last Tuesday evening about seven o’clock, says the Winnemucca (Cal.) Register of August 19, the people in the lower town were startled by the sudden appearance of a huge monster we are at a loss to know whether to call fowl or beast, not-withstanding it had wings and could fly.  It was certainly the biggest creature even seen in this country with feathers.  If a bird, it belongs to a giant species unknown to American ornithology.  Our attention was first attracted by hearing some one sing out, “Holy Mother, see that cow with wings.”  We stepped to the door just in time to see the monster alight with something of a crash on the roof of Mrs. Collier’s dwelling house, where it remained for several minutes taking a quiet survey of the land and the astonished multitude who stood gazing at that unexpected visitor.  It could not have weighed less than seventy or one hundred lbs., with a pair of ponderous wings, which, when stretched out to the breeze, must have been fully twelve feet from tip to tip.  Its color was that of a raven, with the exception that the tip of its wings and tail were white.  An “old salt,” who happened to get sight of the bird, thinks he must be a renegade member of the condor family.  He says he has frequently met with such “critters” on the coast of South America.”

My first source was from Mark A. Hall’s Thunderbirds (2007 ed.; 73, 113) in which the author made reference to the story.  The text as it is generally presented here appeared on the website Wildbirds Broadcasting (June 14, 2012) taken from the Macon [Georgia] Telegraph and Messenger (6126: 2) for September 15, 1871; however I dispute the date of occurrence given (August 1, 1871) and find it reasonable to concur with the text as presented in D’Elia and Haig, which I discuss below, as the Daily Union piece they quote follows only a week after August 19, thus giving me reason to assign as I did the date of the actual sighting (date of “August 9” may have been a recurring misprint if it had been used).  Recent references to the story I have traced on the website Lumberwoods (“Cryptid Sightings,” Lenwood Sharpe; July 17, 2016) where the date “June 5, 1872” is erroneous, and this was subsequently quoted July 25, 2016 on the Cryptozoology Informational Blog (“Cryptids”).  Another online source which quotes it (Aoty, “America’s Fearsome Creatures”) also includes information on related sightings of cryptozoological and anomalous creatures–

http://archive.4plebs.org/dl/tg/image/1493/27/1493273681631.pdf .

As the story was syndicated and published widely throughout the United States and Canada, I will cite newspapers which I was now able to trace through my searches:

—-[Sacramento] Daily Union; August 26, 1871 (see below)

—-New York Times; September 7, 1871

—-New Orleans Republican; September 14, 1871 (truncated version of account begins “The Winnemucca (California) Register thus writes of a ponderous bird recently seen in that place:  “Our attention…””)

—-The Pittsburgh Commercial; September 16, 1871 (4)

—-The [Columbus] Ohio Statesman (40:221 (1)); September 18, 1871

—-St. Catherines [Ontario] Evening Journal;  September 20, 1871

—-Indiana [Pennsylvania] Weekly Messenger; September 20, 1871 (last sentence omitted)

—-[Plattsmouth] Nebraska Herald (7:27 (3)); October 5, 1871 (“Winnemu[c]a, California, has been visited by an immense bird supposed to be a member of the condor family.  The attention of the editor of the Winnemuca Register was called to the visitor by hearing some one exclaim, “Howly Mother, see that cow with wings!””)

In late 2013 was I also able to find another verbatim reprint of the text in a title which had just been published and which serves as the subject of this post and my argument.  It is quoted (entry #59) in California Condors of the Pacific Northwest (D’Elia & Haig, 2013 [forward by Noel Snyder]), Oregon State University Press, where the authors formally treat the story as a record of observation of that species–and this I dispute.  That the bird was described as a “cow with wings” provides a reasonable argument not for the Californian, which is almost wholly black and has but little white on its upperwings, but rather of the Andean Condor, which in the adult readily betrays a piebald pattern.  I think that for the report to call the tail “white” would be an oversight of the folded wing (white of the secondaries) covering the tail and creating that impression.  Some printings of the story had omitted the last statement or the last two statements (any examples of the latter not cited here as they could not be traced at time of writing), yet these serve as an important reinforcement for an Andean argument in that a witness had “”frequently met with such “critters” on the coast of South America.” Jesse D’Elia and Susan Haig actually quote this much also ([Sacramento] Daily Union), despite their assignment, and D’Elia recently prepared a separate dissertation, quoting it again (“California Condors in the Pacific Northwest:  Integrating History, Molecular Ecology, and Spatial Modeling for Reintroduction Planning,” 330–331 (December 8, 2014)).  

From D’Elia’s dissertation (161), which essentially recapitulates the arguments of the above title, the Winnemucca sighting is treated as a legitimate observation of the California Condor Gymnogyps californianus.  The sighting is given a “High” rating in terms of Positional accuracy of the locality of the sighting being precise (the city name being identified rather than it being a vague reference to the county or state).  The observation is rated “5” as a Reliability score, such ranking apparently the lowest score on their scale and thus suggestive of the Winnemucca sighting being one which is deficient in certain respects, though the rankings also seem to be a classification of the type of records examined rather than a reflection on the question of the veracity of the sightings alone.  This is thus defined (164) as “firsthand or secondhand observation with no physical evidence and no bird-in-hand, but with sufficient details to rule out other raptors; not proximal in time (within 10 years) or space (within 100 km of physical evidence or reliable firsthand accounts).”  

Jesse D’Elia also stresses that the appendix of records which include the Winnemucca sightings constitute legitimate observations of Californians in maps therein (example, 138) and also by drawing distinction between those said records and a separate list of “putative” sightings or claims of its occurrence.

“In addition to the condor occurrence data reported in Table 2.2, there are a small number of other purported condor observations east of the Cascade Range and Sierra Nevada, but these lack credibility or sufficient details to determine their reliability: [42]”

 

photograph by F. H. Holmes

The most extensive white areas of the California Condor, the underwing coverts, are not adequate to justify a comparison to a piebald pattern, as the above example of the outstretched underwings of a freshly-killed adult from Big Sur, California demonstrates (Bent, Life Histories of North American Birds:  Falconiformes and Strigiformes (Part One); Bulletin 167, Plate 5).  In 1896, when this picture was taken, it was considered appropriate or customary to kill condors as they were perceived as a threat to livestock as well as how they posed an attractive and impressive find to any collector’s interests, and thus the image also adequately portrays contemporary sentiments which Californians and settlers had towards them.  (See also Belding, “Land Birds of the Pacific District” in Occasional Papers of the California Academy of Sciences (2: 24–26 (1890)) where he quotes from Heermann, who had “known these marauders to drag forth from its concealment and devour a deer within an hour.”)

 

Plate from John James Audubon (“California Vulture,” 426) also reveals how the upperwings show limited white margins on the secondaries and on the tips of the wing-coverts.

In assessing the Winnemucca record my counterargument, that in the first the description does not apply to the Californian and in the second that it does apply to the Andean, is straightforward.  By describing the bird as a “cow with wings” I see, as noted, a ready comparison to the bovine stereotype, the Holstein Freisian cow.  

1898 chromolithograph print of the Holstein-Fresian Cow.

(source not available)

The cow archetype has extensive areas of white, particularly along its lower extremities, the legs and hindquarters.  In considering between either of the condor species which fits closer to this pattern, it is incontrovertible that it would apply to the Andean.  At the same time I go further to argue that the California Condor is not only the least likely of the two to be given the comparison between them but that, as noted, it would be an inappropriate comparison no less.  That the description refers to the “wings and tail” being white also correlates to the Andean as my above explanation conveys, and a Californian in its plumage is lacking in any white areas to possibly allow that impression–a mistaken one, as neither species has a white tail.  

What was observed was a remarkable and rare occurrence of the Vultur gryphus in Nevada in the year 1871.  I feel confident that this was not a different species nor a species unknown to record however the impression of the color of the tail, however it being a hypothetical record as it was not properly evidenced.  D’Elia and Haig do not offer explanations for their decision to treat the record as an observation of the Californian, and I might assume that their reasoning is due to the location of the sighting falling close within the distribution of that species to allow for the notion to perpetuate of the lone individual being a nomadic accidental as it is understood that they have such propensity for extra-limital movement.  (A tagged immature Californian, N8, was identified in Los Alamos, Los Alamos County, New Mexico April 24, 2015, its provenance being from the reintroduced stock in Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona.  See also New Mexico Ornithological Society Field Notes (54 (2)), reference to 2014 therein erroneous).

The appearance of an Andean Condor in Nevada as a rare sighting deserves explanation itself if this newspaper story is to be believed.  Such an explanation should fall into a greater discussion on the Andean’s true propensity for extreme extra-limital dispersal, a matter which will given separate treatment.  It is of interest to note, however the point needs further consideration, that Winnemucca, Nevada is situated at nearly the same parallel (40°58′ N) as the location of another important sighting in this series–Lawndale, Illinois (40°13′ N); the difficulty is whether the western U.S. is in a similar manner a point of disposition for accidental condors as is the eastern half in spite of geophysical differences.

Images of adult Andean Condors showing wings outspread from Wikimedia archives (Eric Kilby (above), user Bastihitzi (below)).

The piebald or pied pattern is typical of the adult Andean Condors but is absent in the immatures and younger birds.  What function this pattern serves is probably one which, in part, may facilitate identification of soaring birds as being of their kind by other Andeans when observed by each other from considerable distances.  This pattern in Andeans is not unique among birds if I consider the pattern of white secondary panels, as the picture below of the White-winged Scoter shows.  I have also included two examples of bird species which show pied plumage, though there are many more than the two; however it is a digression to feature them in The Unknown Andean Condor, I do so drawing emphasis again to how the expression “cow with wings,” as quoted from the story, is equivalent to a pied pattern and thus equivalent to an adult Andean Condor, yet certainly not like the California Condor.

 

Plate (Volume II, 54) from John Gould, Birds of Australia of the Grallina australis [Magpie-Lark, Grallina cyanoleuca].

 

Plate XXVII by John Gerrard Keulemans from Seebohm, Monograph of the Turdidae, of Geocichla wardii [Pied Thrush, Zoothera wardii].

 

plate from Henry Eeles Dresser, History of the Birds of Europe [Keulemans]

The Velvet Scoter (White-winged Scoter) Oedemia fusca [Melanitta fusca] is one species which bears a plumage pattern somewhat similar to that of the Andean Condor, as they show white secondaries against black wings, though the corresponding underwing is white as well.  In the White-winged Scoter the females have darker irides and show sexual dimorphism in contrast with the white-eyed males, another comparison which holds to some degree with the Andean.  Similarly, as a further example, a common desert species in western North America, the Phainopepla Phainopepla nitens, shows contrasting characters; it is the males which shows red eyes and the females which are darker.  Males also show white wing panels–on both the upperwing and underwing–however these are on its primaries and not its secondaries.  That similarities such as these exist in very unrelated types of birds to allow for a cursory illustration of them here, in comparison to the condor, is a point which was neither anticipated nor providing by way of explanation.

 

 

 

Mathew Louis

7 Reprisal of My Evaluation of Bartram.

 

More than two years have now passed since my evaluation of the case of William Bartram’s “Painted Vulture” was presented on the website Wildbirds Broadcasting, this critique being what may be the last word on the mystery. 

http://wildbirdsbroadcasting.blogspot.com/2014/06/vultur-sacra-invalid-taxon.html

(The “Vultur sacra” as an Invalid Taxon and Shortcomings in the Veracity of Bartram’s “Travels” by Mathew Louis).

I was motivated to write not simply as a response to an earlier posting on Wildbirds Broadcasting (“Painted Vulture a Former American Species” (March 25, 2013)) which had cited a recently-published report in the peer-reviewed Zootaxa (“Validity of Bartram’s Painted Vulture,” 3613(1): 61–82) on the subject, the authors of which, Noel Snyder and Joel Fry, having endorsed the “Painted” as described by Bartram as a now-extinct form of vulture formerly resident in Florida.  My investigations into this mystery actually began rather inadvertently.

In the late summer of 2013 I had decided to summarize my findings on the Andean Condor in a research paper, which, as I had then believed, would concisely present the material in a general way but within a limited space.  The paper was presented for review to a publication which had just been launched, and it was meant to be the end result of my efforts.  Ultimately, it was not published, and this blog now serves that end of how I have dealt with the task of dissemination.  As I had previously taken similar issue with another publication I had approached that summer, I was apprehensive to see my findings presented in a manner that would not allow them to be readily accessible (despite its recent launch and the appearance of successive numbers, the former publication has now been without an installment for two years).  Further, I soon realized that, as the scope of my findings broadened and I clearly had more to evaluate, it would be impractical to attempt containing the report to a few thousand words per the criteria of that or any journal publication.  

This paper was reviewed, and from comments in a recommendation by one of the two Reviewers were my attentions drawn to the subject of the “Painted Vulture.”  Otherwise, I hardly saw any relevance, in my paper, of the former to the underlying discussion I had presented on the Andean Condor.  I would not be complicit to the recommendation as I felt it was a digression and saw an impasse in having my work appear in that journal.  The Reviewer wanted me to propose and evaluate the question of the King Vulture Sarcorhamphus papa as being a possible identity of the bird sightings my reported covered, and the paper by Snyder & Fry (cited above) was invoked.  I took the suggestion seriously and wanted to make certain that I had an argument to not include it in the submission itself; my paper had only considered the best cases of sightings of giant birds which I could by diagnosis attribute as sightings of the Andean Condor, thus removing from consideration all other bird species, especially one that would hardly account for any of the whole contagion of sightings of mysterious avian giants:  the King Vulture.  [Though authors use the spelling of the genus as Sarcoramphus, I have decided to retain the usage of it as it appears in this and other posts.]

I did not simply consider the case of Bartram’s “vulture” to establish a counterargument to the Reviewer’s recommendation.  I, too, was intrigued by it and had long questioned whether or not the bird Bartram had identified was a now-extinct species or if it was an accidental King Vulture.  I am aware of a great number of extra-limital records which are supported by just one sighting or specimen without any further substantiation in the given area by the form represented, an example being Worthen’s Sparrow Spizella wortheni, which was first collected in New Mexico in 1884 but has not been observed in the state since.  It is possible that a single record can be a legitimate one despite the hiatus.

As much of the discussion on Bartram is well known and need not much exposition, I will here contribute those additional or novel details of which that have not been incorporated into the greater debate.  I first became familiar with the reference to the “Painted” from the popular work Eagles, Hawks and Falcons of the World (Brown & Amadon, 1: 182) where the authors mention it in their entry for the King, suggesting that Bartram may have erred in his description, the error being either that he had misidentified a King or that the claim was a more generalized error and that no Sarcorhamphus vulture ever occurred in Florida.  As my summary would show, the latter is the case (excluding records of escapes), but in this post, I will take license to further elaborate on that point and question the integrity of Bartram’s work overall.  Brown & Amadon’s stance differs somewhat from that of another popular author, Roger Tory Peterson, who was convinced that the bird was a King Vulture and gave it treatment in his field guides, of which I quote: 

KING VULTURE. Sarcoramphus papa. Found by William Bartram in Florida, 1774 or 1775. A huge white or pink-bodied Vulture with black and white wings, and a black tail. Head highly colored (red, yellow, etc.).

—-Peterson, R. T.  Field Guide to the Birds..  (Second Revised Edition (1947)); 248.  [APPENDIX I.  West Indian and Tropical Birds.]

Roger Tory Peterson gave especial interest to the King Vulture.  Outside of his field guide series, he probably produced more portraits of it than he did of the Caracara Caracara cheriway, the true identity of Bartram’s bird (Eagles, Hawks,.. plate 2 (vol. 1); World of Birds, 13).

 

BARTRAM POSSIBLY A FRAUD

In considering the matter I felt it necessary to go the source.  I queried Noel Snyder, who co-authored the Zootaxa paper.  I offered some critique in my query, and in his response he maintained the legitimacy of the arguments.  As I later realized, much of what I was asking served as just a counterargument to their thesis; I was not getting to the actual question itself:  what exactly was the “Painted Vulture”?  With reflection on the source, Bartram’s travelogue, I took interest in his detail of the bird’s crop (“…what is singular, a large portion of the stomach hangs down on the breast of the bird, in the likeness of a sack or half wallet,…”) and then realized that the Caracara does also possess a crop, an image in a title in my collection (Photographic Guide to the Birds of the World (A. Gosler, ed.), 105) being responsible for affording me the comparison that sprung to mind.  In my query to Snyder, I had not even mentioned the Caracara, but, not having been passionate to give priority evaluating it, I then started taking account of other comparisons of it to what Bartram had described.  Bartram’s description clearly revealed a bird that was very different from a Caracara, as he described a bare-headed bird with a red crown and with “lobed lappets of a redish [sic] orange colour” along its beak, which, among other points, are more characteristic of the King Vulture.

On June 13, 2014, I was able to consult a number of important works in a library and took note of the reference in Friedmann (cited in my original post in Wildbirds Broadcasting) to a resident population of the Caracara along the St. Johns River, the same locality where Bartram  made his own sighting.  John James Audubon would first encounter them in the same general area (roughly eighteen miles separate the St. Johns from St. Augustine):

     “I was not aware of the existence of the Caracara or the Brazilian Eagle in the United States, until my visit to the Floridas in the winter of 1831.  On the 24th November of that year, in the course of an excursion near the town of St. Augustine, I observed a bird flying at a great elevation, and almost over my head.  Convinced that it was unknown to me, and bent on obtaining it, I followed it nearly a mile, when I saw it sail towards the earth, making for a place where a group of Vultures were engaged in devouring a dead horse.”

—-Audubon, John James. Ornithological Biography (II: 350); Birds of America,..   (I: 21–22)

(The Florida population of Caracara would later be described after him by John Cassin– Polyborus Audubonii  (Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philadelphia, 1865; 2), however this name is not usually accepted as valid.)

Other peculiarities were evident.  Bartram, having described a considerable diversity of fauna, particularly avifauna, in his Travels.. seems to have omitted any reference to anything that could be readily construed as a Caracara.  Proponents of the “Painted” form argued that its diagnostic “character” was its tail–white tipped with dark brown or black.  It is the Caracara, which, if seen from a distance, has such a pattern.  As Bartram never categorically owned to having obtained a specimen, I could imagine that he was only able to observe them at such a distance to not cause one to flee; thus he would not have been able to take note of the indistinct barred pattern along the white areas of the Caracara’s tail.  Further, both caracara species of the South American genus Milvago (M. chimachima,  M. chimango) have in common such similar tail patterns.

With this much to consider, among other points, I was faced with the task of assuming Bartram had indeed described a Caracara but had somehow conflated it with a description of the King Vulture, and thus, he had never seen an example of the latter.  The question remained:  was Bartram familiar with the description of the King?  The answer to that proved to be true, and which arrived before my day of researching was done, but the truth was also shocking.  Bartram had merely appropriated the text from an earlier description of the King into that of his “Painted,” and, as I revealed in my summary from Wildbirds Broadcasting, Bartram’s source was A Natural History of Uncommon Birds,.. by George Edwards.  Further, Bartram took license to give his bird a scientific name similar to that of the King Vulture.  He called it “Vultur sacra,” and there can be no doubt that that name speaks to a familiarity with the name and Linnaean description of V. papa.

Within days I wrote my summary for Wildbirds Broadcasting, which was posted (“Vultur sacra an Invalid Taxon”).  The material was presented hurriedly and some references and scientific names should have appeared in italics, but nonetheless the arguments I still uphold, especially my point relating to the feather in the portrait of Micco Chlucco of either ambiguous identity or not correlative to the purported “Painted” as indicated by Snyder & Fry.  A serious error in my post, my negligence being its genesis, is found in the first statement of the final paragraph, where I meant valid in place of invalid.  This summary became a truly fitting sidebar project originating from my researches on the Andean Condor, the project of which I now realize I cannot present so concisely.  (Another mystery specimen, the Townsend’s Bunting, I would also later evaluate in Wildbirds Broadcasting (June 4–19, 2015).)

I was faced with a difficult predicament in presenting my findings, that William Bartram displayed an underhanded side in his writing.  In my post I tried to approach this difficulty by invoking an unknown; I referred throughout my piece to “the hand by which his ‘Travels’ was edited,” that some copy editor had appropriated the description for Bartram, who had not meant to see it published in such a manner.  With further reflection, I regret it.  What “explanation” I offered as to how the deception originated (see section, “Veracity of Bartram Compromised in “Travels…” within the post) represents the part of my summary that I would now wish to retract, as it was only conjectural and as I soon came to a better explanation.  When I was writing, I kept in mind that Bartram had made subsequent corrections to further printings of his book, and that a simple examination of those would determine whether the verbatim description of “sacra” was his intention.  Any of the errata making reference to it would show that he did or did not wish to see anything changed in respects to it.  After examining a copy of the Library of America edition of Travels.. (T. Slaughter, ed. (No. 84)) I found what I needed.  This was all but certainly not the case.  The Library of America edition offered a more comprehensive treatment of the material, including much of the roughly 28-item errata Bartram had proposed to see in a future revision of the James and Johnson edition of Travels..  None of these refer to the “Painted” description, and as the very aspect of an errata is to denote only brief corrections, I think it appropriate to argue that he did in fact write the “Painted” description without any intent to make changes, as any such changes would require a more substantial revision of an entire paragraph.

A month after my writing was posted, I offered some further commentary, specifically addressing the veracity of Bartram (Wikipedia entry “King Vulture”), among other particulars, on this page–

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:King_vulture#Painted_Vulture_probably_a_misidentified_Caracara

“…I will add that it is more likely, than what I originally presumed, that William Bartram took it upon himself to perpetuate the deliberate augmentation of his description of “Vultur sacra” from the heavily paraphrased “King of the Vultures” by George Edwards.  Bartram did write a 28-item errata after his Travels were published, and due to the likelihood that no reference to the “Painted Vulture” would have been mentioned in that errata, thus by implication meaning that Bartram felt that there was nothing to correct, it gives argument to the notion that Bartram alone wrote the heavily paraphrased description.”

From this there are multiple facets to consider.  It is unequivocal that William Bartram appropriated the text from another author’s description to create a description of something from his own experiences.  It was not just that he was describing a bird species already familiar to the literature–Bartram was describing something new.  To characterize this as a paraphrasing of George Edwards was polite of me, and it is evident from this that the wording of the description can be compared to plagiarism.  I can only consider that any new description or claim appearing in the present-day, having been presented with material heavily adapted from another, earlier author’s work, would be one that would not nor should not be taken seriously nor given special heed.  It would be one that would further diminish the credibility of its author.  

I might suppose that perhaps Bartram was working from memory, not having a skin, and somehow conflated the description of the King in Edwards to that of the Caracaras he had seen.  This much does not reconcile the circumstances of his describing it the way he did, that he all but plagiarized.  The “Painted” is like the King in having colorful lappets along its beak, and overall it is a bird far more colorful than the Caracara in terms of the bare skin of its head and neck and a crown, also bare of feathers, red in color.  Bartram did not make a singular mistake in his sighting–he made numerous, and each point should be considered for what it is.  The Caracara is without lappets along its beak and has a head with a feathered crown of black.  Multiple characters of the King, among other details, were incorrectly attributed to the Caracara.  I can only ponder this difficulty, that he wrote his book some seventeen years after seeing them and was grossly flawed in his recollections and judgments.  This difficulty is only compounded by the description he wrote of the “Croped Vulture” in his manuscript letter to John Fothergill about 1775 (my original post on Wildbirds Broadcasting), that being much unlike the “Painted.”  Importantly and to Bartram’s credit, as I noted in my earlier summary, that an important character–color of beak–he omitted altogether in his published work, may demonstrate how Bartram may have been attempting to provide a faithful description of the Caracara on certain other points where his “Painted” differs from the King (i.e., color of iris).  If that holds, it only does with a caveat, that the Caracara is a far less colorful (attractive) bird than the King, and that Bartram may have just as well wanted to describe something that would appeal to an audience of readers who would purchase and read his book.  Zoological collections likely have more examples of the King than they do of the Caracara (though the latter is of symbolic significance in México).  Even while writing this post, I learned that the Wikipedia Foundation intends to use an image of the King Vulture as their website’s “Picture of the Day.”  

Overall, I will refrain from describing William Bartram as a fraud, as much of what else he wrote relating to his interests in natural history are still no less worth merit; I mean to characterize his description of his “Vultur sacra” as having been done fraudulently.  This is a departure from what has been written of Bartram and his work and how it has been characterized (especially as Snyder & Fry, as a reinforcement of their thesis, argue that he was reliable in his observations), but it is necessary as my assessment shows that Bartram demonstrated a departure from the truth that compromised his veracity and the veracity of his writing overall.  In my researches of the condor and sightings of giant birds and other anomalous mysteries, I have likewise come across a trend, in numerous cases, where witnesses, having had their respective sightings and experiences, go further to embellish or fabricate their claims, thus rendering major suspicion to the stories themselves; an allusion to those as respects this discussion is, in my view, appropriate.

THE “PAINTED VULTURE” AS A CARACARA

The summary of my findings on Bartram’s bird being a Caracara poses the question of the disposition of the scientific name he created for it.  The name “Vultur sacra” Bartram is a nomen dubium owing to the botched description by which the author allowed in borrowing from the description of the “King of the Vultures” of George Edwards.  Edwards wrote before the use of Linnaean names began, but no less he has long been incorporated into the synonymy of Sarcorhamphus papa as Linnaeus made such reference in his original description.  As “sacra” is a nomen dubium, it should not be placed in the synonymy of any species.  This is also particularly true because it was a description based on a sighting and no specimen was obtained to allow for an appropriate designation.  However, if I were to give the name any special disposition, place it in synonymy somewhere, it should be ascribed not to Sarcorhamphus but to Falco [=Caracara] cheriway Jacquin.  I feel that the synonymy in Caracara exclusive of Sarcorhamphus is appropriate because Bartram’s observation by itself was legitimate (as was his original description in his letter to Fothergill) and was an observation of the former, where the latter he had never seen.  This also applies to combinations of the name as proposed by Snyder & Fry and elsewhere:  Sarcorhamphus (S. sacra, S. sacer) and Sarcoramphus (S. sacer, S. sacra, S. papa sacra, S. papa sacer).

RESEARCH PAPERS IN ZOOTAXA

In their report in Zootaxa, Snyder & Fry argued that William Bartram had not been mistaken in his observations:

“That any beginning bird student might construct a description resembling Bartram’s painted Vulture based on viewing a Caracara seems extremely doubtful. That Bartram might have done so seems beyond all credibility.”

Though they did not consider the comparison of Bartram’s description to Edwards, the authors felt that “…his description bears almost no resemblance to a Northern Caracara, but it does match the King Vulture in all important respects except tail color….”  

I will own at the time of writing to still not having been able to examine Snyder & Fry’s paper in its entirety, and some of my comments will draw attention to outstanding points; however, I nonetheless feel that, from what I have read, an argument for the validity of the “Painted” deserves rejection in place of what I have presented and other criticisms.  Snyder & Fry go further to add a narrative as to the natural history of the “Painted” in Florida and how a population once flourished there.  This brings to mind how disjunct populations or subspecies of Floridian fauna have parallel populations in the Western U.S., namely the Caracara, Scrub Jay Aphelocoma spp., or Mountain Lion Puma concolor as examples.  However, the King Vulture was never known as a breeding bird in those more arid western regions where the above examples are found, and I found their argument in that respect to be novel if the “Painted” ever did exist.  The King is a tropical vulture, and it is impossible to understand why any “parallel” of it would occur in northern Florida (29° N), where the portion of the peninsula south of the Everglades region (27° N), where “it” had never been observed, is tropical or subtropical.

Attention has been afforded to the “Painted” in two putative representations which appear at the following links–

1)  http://narcamoorecraig.blogspot.com/2013/03/bartrams-painted-vulture.html

[“…at long last, the acceptance of this now-extinct species – or subspecies – into the roster of North American avifauna.”]

2)  http://novataxa.blogspot.com/2013/02/bartram-painted-vulture.html

Endorsement also appeared in 2013 on Birdwatching Daily (“Florida’s Lost Vulture” (April 22)) and the American Birding Association [ABA] Blog (“North America’s Oldest New Bird?” (March 19)).

Another recent report, also from Zootaxa (3918(4): 579–586), took up the issue of the “Painted,” though the author, Jiří Mlíkovský, rejected the validity of “sacra” as a taxon (both of these Zootaxa papers being reviewed by R. T. Chesser).

As a digression, and after reading again the review of Harper on this subject in Auk (53: 381), I will offer a reasoning behind this underlying problem of how a lack of attention paid to important points by earlier authors can perpetuate and establish a thesis that is and was, all along, without merit.  In Harper’s paper is, for the first time, Bartram’s letter to Fothergill, the description of a bird which merits no comparison whatsoever to an exotic vulture like the King Vulture; yet, as a result of nearsighted selective bias, the discrepancy of the description in that letter and what Bartram, whose credibility deserved scrutiny, wrote in his published work, was not considered; the oversight has been readily accepted since then.

MOVEMENTS OF KING VULTURE

The discussion on the King Vulture, Caracara, and any hypothetical forms ascribed as being congeneric to either is relevant to my findings on the Andean Condor, especially as this discussion relates to the movements of birds species.  In my previous post [UAC4] I decided to allow inclusion into the discussion the genera related to that of the condor where such inclusion would be applicable.  In that post I determined that a misidentified King Vulture egg specimen from Panamá was not that of an Andean Condor as had been previously recorded, thus removing that country altogether from the record of the condor’s distribution.  That the Andean Condor is without established precedent as a species occurring in Panamá stressed a difficulty of mine in presenting my arguments on its extra-limital movement–that the condor is greatly lacking in this respect and thus would not likely occur as far away as the state of Illinois let alone a country proximate to its known breeding range in the Andes.

With my evaluation of Bartram, a similar point is necessary to consider.  With the exception of two series of Kings sighted in Florida, these very likely escaped birds (see above link from my Wikipedia reference), there is, unequivocally, no known record of Sarcorhamphus ever naturally-occurring in that state.  If I am arguing that condors are given to extreme extra-limital movement, how should I consider the extra-limital movements of related vulture species (or lack thereof)?  In evaluating this point, I stress that differences in movements and habitat can affect the dynamic of how an accidental or vagrant bird may be seen or where it may be seen; that there is a relationship between species or genera (as the King and Andean have even been treated in the literature as being congeneric) does not necessarily imply an exact analogy in their propensity for movement.  With regards to the King Vulture, there is, however, reason for comfort:  it may very well have had historic occurrence in the United States.  As the King formerly was resident along the coast of Sinaloa, México, but in more recent times having been extirpated from the northernmost part of its range, I can clearly gauge the possibility of a pair of adults being displaced by summer tropical storms to be pushed so far north as to appear in Arizona in 1865, as was recorded by Elliott Coues (my original post on Wildbirds Broadcasting), despite this record not being accepted as it was not substantiated by his not collecting a  specimen.  (If it was west of the territorial line, this sighting would have occurred in what is now Greenlee County, Arizona).  As I had noted on my original post, the additional claim of one having been seen along the Verde River in Arizona warrants discredit, but the Coues sighting in itself is nonetheless compelling and more credible than the arguments put forth by Bartram’s adherents.  It is the only case where I am all but given to believe a Sarcorhamphus vulture as naturally-occurring north of México, but that it may be the only does not diminish the likelihood or potential of any extra-limital occurrence of this species or of the Andean Condor.  (I have not assessed the question of possible extra-limital movements of the King in other parts of its distribution.)

I was not able to examine the image of the limestone bowl from Alabama as considered in Snyder & Fry, but from what little I know of it, there is nothing of it that reveals a diagnosis to “sacra” nor anything to remove it from being construed as a possible representation of another familiar bird form.  The “white eagle” that they correlate to the “Painted,” is, from my appreciation of that description (correct attribution of the author, Antoine-Simon Le Page du Pratz), one that better fits an Osprey Pandion haliaetus carolinensis.

 

 

“Brasilian Caracara Eagle.”  Polyborus vulgaris.  Plate CLXI in Audubon, Birds of America.

In conclusion, I will include a picture, it being the only for this post, that could not be more fitting to this topic and which also elegantly underscores my point.  The “Painted Vulture” can, in a sense, be construed as a legitimate concept, but, contrary to what has for more than two centuries been asserted or suggested, not one any different than that which John James Audubon faithfully portrayed in the above illustration.

6 Further Assessment of the Lawndale Incident

I will further evaluate the 1977 Lawndale, Illinois incident in this assessment.  From my previous post [UAC5], I presented an argument that an adult female Andean Condor was responsible for the attack on a child in Lawndale owing to how the bird’s toes became caught in the type of garment worn by the victim which caused him to be propelled forward for a distance of about 35 feet.  Here I will add further comment on some particulars which specifically relate to the incident, though my post does not fully expound on others, namely how the movements of condors appearing in the United States is a naturally-occurring phenomenon.

My map of the locality as featured in the previous also highlighted areas where other sightings took place, including Tazewell, McLean, DeWitt, and Marion counties.  (Claims of observations of giant birds in DuPage, Vermilion counties were also highlighted, but these were not part of the same series in question and will be, eventually, discussed in a separate posting on other related incidents in the state.)  As I also will note, below, I have new information that may also warrant the inclusion of Cook County as part of this series.

Map of Logan County, Illinois, with Kickapoo Creek marked blue.  In the Lawndale incident, Kickapoo Creek was the area to which the two birds were last seen heading, according to witnesses.  Image adapted from map appearing in Illinois:  Atlas of Historical County Boundaries.  John H. Long, ed.; p. 142 (1997).

 

Image of adult female Andean Condor, the species observed in Lawndale, Illinois on July 25, 1977, and also observed near Minier, Illinois (July 28, 1977) and in Bloomington, Illinois (July 31, 1977).

The primary source I have consulted in evaluating the sightings is Hall’s Thunderbirds, a work which I have previously cited [UAC3, UAC5].  The author’s treatment of events is comprehensive.  In the 2007 edition of his revision, he recognizes eleven events as part of this series (20), the first of course being the Lawndale incident.  There was, as I had noted, another Lawndale witness who would only use the name “Mr. Cox” (not in Hall), and who, not of the Lowe party that evening, was purportedly and belatedly the first to have seen the birds, about a minute before their appearance at the Lowe’s (8:10 P.M.).

I have identified four additional sightings as inclusive to the discussion, with two others worth consideration.  Two of them demonstrate an observation of the Andean Condor to diagnosis.

In the community of Covell, Illinois (McLean County), Stanley Thompson, his wife, and four other witnesses claimed to have seen a giant bird, with a wingspan estimated to be ten feet, appear near the barn on their farm, it seeming to be attracted to the remote-controlled model planes being flown overhead.  Its plumage was described as “brown with white wing tips.”  This description does not allow diagnosis to species, yet I will ascribe it as proximately diagnostic.  This bird, a lone individual, was certainly not like the two described from Lawndale, and an immature Andean Condor, likely a female immature condor, would be brown in plumage overall.  The reference to “white wing tips” needs careful consideration.  I had at first believed this to be a reference to white panels, typical of the Andean’s secondaries.  However, it is the adult condor which is characterized by these; the panels begin to show as the plumage in the mature individuals becomes blacker.  It is an intriguing point in the description, though it is altogether wanting in details.  I think that what Thompson was noting was probably the distinctive white shafts of the primaries of an immature, or, less likely, paler contrasting feathers of the underwing and upperwing coverts.  I am at a loss to consider what other type of raptor this would be, aside from the circumstance of its appearance coinciding with the other sightings.  This incident occurred July 28, 1977, at about 8 P.M.  As other accounts I have read relate to giant birds having been seen near moving aircraft, it is plausible to argue that this bird may have been attracted to the model planes flying over their barn.

While driving between the towns of Minier and Armington (Tazewell County) about 5:30 P.M., the same day, Janet Brandt reported seeing a great bird having a ring of white around its neck.  This latter point refers to an observation of the condor that is diagnostic.  Again, the sighting happens towards evening.  (Map in Hall accounts for the sighting of Janet Brandt twice as it had occurred between the communities of Armington and Minier.)

The Andean Condor was identified to diagnosis in Bloomington (McLean County).  This would be the sighting of Mrs. Albert Dunham and her son, Albert, which occurred about 2–4 P.M. on July 31.  In this case the white ring around the neck was noted.  However, Hall forges an association between the incident and the subsequent sighting there by a news reporter of Great Blue Herons; this suggestion is inappropriate, and I believe that the former event is extricable from the later.

A farm south of the town of Odin (Marion County) represented the locality of the final episode in the series, the sighting happening on August 11, 1977, and after which no further reports, putative or otherwise, being made known.  John and Wanda Chappell  and their son, John, watched a bird, which they compared to a vulture but superior in size, with difficulty land on a tree branch outside their home.  For about ten minutes Wanda Chappell took note of its appearance through bins, but her description does not quite allow me to ascribe to diagnosis the Andean Condor.

“It looked like a prehistoric bird.  It was really fantastic.  The head didn’t have any feathers and it had a long neck, crooked, kind of ‘S’ shaped.  The body was covered with feathers and was gray or charcoal-colored.”

Certainly this was a vulture, likely an immature or juvenile Andean, but on account of the uniformity of the plumage of the younger condors not allowing for ready identification distinguishing it from related species, I must ascribe this sighting as  proximately diagnostic.  (See also Centralia Sentinel (Aug. 11, 1977) and Bloomington Pantagraph (Aug. 12, 1977.))

The sighting in Waynesville (DeWitt County) involved residents who described a giant blackish bird with a wingspan of about eight feet.  The description seems ambiguous but worth mention.  I had nonetheless in my previous post highlighted the county as part this series owing to this particular claim.

A sixth sighting in the series, more detailed in Hall’s book, deserves special attention, though I am unable to ascribe it as even a questionable sighting of an Andean Condor.  Near Delavan (Tazewell County) at ten minutes to 6 A.M. on July 29, James Majors claimed to have seen two birds with wingspans of eight feet circling over a farm, one of which he saw attacking what he presumed to be a young pig (as though with the intent of abduction).  The particulars of this case I find difficult to appreciate on account of how the birds’ behavior was characterized and also, especially, on the lack of any description of plumage or body characters from the witness.  Yet he did offer a point which is not singular to other descriptions of giant birds or other anomalous creatures I have examined.  Majors described them as having a “”mean-looking” appearance,” and, this or similar phrases being used in other cases however independent of each other, I have reason to suggest that the feature was a characterization of the bird due to the furrow forming over the supraorbital ridge allowing for the “expression.”

I find that the other incidents of which Hall treats as part of the series either as observations of birds whose description is ambiguous for inclusion–such as the claim of a witness in Tremont, Illinois–or whose description may have been of another species, likely the Great Blue Heron Ardea herodias, as in the sightings of “crane-like” birds in Lincoln in two incidents.  From my previous report, I also reject the claim of birds filmed by John Huffer of Shelbyville being a species other than the Turkey Vulture; review of that film will show a molting flight feather not unusual to Turkey Vultures.  The July 30 sighting near Gillum, Illinois is also ambiguous as a clear description was not offered, and that the bird would be observed dropping a rat from its perch on a telephone pole indicates behavior unlike that of a condor, which does not carry nor clutch prey, but perhaps being that of a bird of prey common to the region such as an owl or a Red-tailed Hawk Buteo jamaicensis.

Contemporary sources from newspapers also include the Bloomington Pantagraph (27 July, 29 July–2 Aug., 1977), Peoria Journal Star (30 July 1977), and the Champaign-Urbana Courier (1 Aug. 1977).  While some of the reports borrow the term “Big Bird” in describing the birds, this in reference to the sightings of giant birds in southern Texas from the previous year, 1976, the term “Bigclaw” or “Big Claw” was also employed in the Illinois accounts.

Hall in his treatment excludes the sighting of a bird, days prior to the Lawndale incident, that proved to be an escaped Peafowl Pavo cristatus in New Holland, Illinois.

This year I have also received new information, belated published testimony (March 29), from a comment made on my previous post about an alleged sighting that happened in Chicago (Cook County) in the same summer of 1977.  The witness confided to me that the bird was seen at night, this a noteworthy point as it is consistent to other cases in this series and many other related cases.  However, I felt that the description was ambiguous, though I give credence to the prospect of a giant bird being observed where it allegedly was.

The film that served as inspiration to my study on the thunderbird stories (Monsterquest:  Birdzilla) sought to offer explanations as to what type of raptor or bird would have been responsible for the attack on a child in Lawndale.  Meteorologist Joe Sobel offered explanation for how weather patterns could have affected the movements of birds, in particular, how the bird in the Lawndale incident may have actually been an accidental Crowned Eagle Stephanoaetus coronatus from Africa having strayed into the middle U.S.  I reject this argument as there is simply no correlation in terms of its description.  Yet, it is worth noting, as it is believed that the Crowned Eagle may have a history of preying on humans, as well as how my own arguments on the movements of condors (forthcoming) similarly explain how the understanding of their movements, and their propensity for movement, has been underestimated.  It is the Andean Condor, not the Crowned Eagle, which is capable of such extraordinary displacement for it to be found in the United States.

 

Crowned Eagle Stephanoaetus coronatus as illustrated by Claude Gibney Finch-Davies [C.G. Davies]

One author on this subject (Shuker, In Search of Prehistoric Survivors..) who questioned why birdwatchers in Illinois would not have similarly made reports of sightings like those which were described in the summer of 1977 offered an answer that I feel is partly inadequate:  “I think that we need look no further than the Lowes’ experiences for an answer to this mystery.  There is a universe of difference between the thrill of reporting a vagrant European warbler in Illinois or a Californian finch turning up in Missouri[,] and the stigma long associated with confessions of the cryptozoological kind.”  There are no known records of Sylviidae warblers having been reported in Illinois (though there are records there for European birds representing other groups) nor are there any records of rare finches in Missouri having originated from California.  The central problem has to do with how the claim is evidenced, and unfortunately, skeptics of claims of giant birds seen that year in Illinois have grounds for their arguments in these instances, as not one witness was able to even produce a photograph of what they claimed to have seen.  There is also the problem with how witnesses describe what they see, as I believe was true in the Lawndale series, under the premise that their experience is of observing something unknown and incredibly removed from any human understanding.

In spite of my criticism I will argue and draw attention to the fact that no author in an ornithological work relating to birds or birdwatching (excepting one title I quoted in UAC5) has even entertained the discussion of the spate of reports that were made in Illinois or anywhere else in the United States in recent times.  Not a single reference to this series did I trace in American Birds, Volume 31 (1977).  The reasons for this may not necessarily be elusive, if I will refrain from fully elaborating on them here, and I allude and insinuate the discussions and the varied receptions of alleged sightings of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker Campephilus principalis as a reference and parallel.

 

 

Engraving by J. C. Whichelo

To conclude, the above illustration is a plate from George Perry, Arcana…  While this clearly depicts an immature male Andean Condor and is also an imaginative illustration as the condor cannot truly lift with its toes, it also belies the argument, which I support, that this is a species which is not to be removed from being capable of predation.

“The Condor Vulture, the largest known at present[] is found only in South America, and has made its name terrible to the Natives by the attacks which it sometimes makes upon living animals, and in some cases even upon the human species.  Some writers have confidently affirmed that it has been known to carry away Children where an opportunity has offered; and two of these birds have been seen to attack a full-grown heifer, and ultimately destroy it, by tearing it in pieces.”

Yet, as the above excerpt from Perry shows, the naturalists who have written on the subject are not any less removed from being capable of extreme exaggeration.

 

 

 

 

 

5 Explanation of the 1977 Lawndale, Illinois Incident.

Explanation of the 1977 Lawndale, Illinois Incident.

In the summer of 1977, Ruth Lowe of Lawndale, Illinois reported to the authorities that her son, Marlon, age 10, had been attacked by a bird, from a pair each having estimated wingspans of ten feet, which managed to displace him some 35 feet before releasing him.  What followed was a feverish pursuit by interested parties to find these giants and reinforce the claim.  In the days following July 25, an amateur video was produced which was presented as evidence of the birds, but all this revealed was two Turkey Vultures.

It was downhill from there.  The lack of substantiating evidence on the sighting reduced Lawndale’s “thunderbird” to the annals of offbeat scientific literature.  Proper evidence in this and similar cases would readily determine the credibility of the witnesses and also verify their respective judgments in what they claimed.  If one believes that the Lowes were telling the truth, then either the presence of these giant birds as they were described and the demonstration by one of them of attacking a human being was or was not a singular instance and, likewise, would not or would perpetuate.  In their habits living things generally pull towards consistency, not singularity, thus mandating a motivation for the birds’ appearance as well as the prospect of further demonstrations of this behavior.  That is why this case was easy to dismiss.

Yet, all along, its dismissal was unwarranted.  What the Lowes claimed did happen.

As many will be incredulous to it, the Lowes and other witnesses that evening were sincere in relaying their experience, and they remained consistent in their respective testimonies; there were yet some important discrepancies, as I will explain.  What happened has also much to do with where it happened and why.  This obscure, unincorporated community is well-situated for the type of incident that took place 38 years ago, and as my findings will show in forthcoming presentations, precedent is known for similar sightings of giant birds in the state and is great for consideration of related cases elsewhere.

The Lowes

Marlon Lowe                  Ruth Lowe

 

I write this evaluation with the admission that I, too, was for a long time a skeptic of the particulars of this story.  It first came to my attention in Extinct Birds (revised edition, 2001) by Errol Fuller.

“And while on the subject of truly legendary creatures, what is to be made of the North American ‘thunderbird’?  Rumours of the existence of a monstrous bird with an astonishing wingspan–perhaps some kind of gigantic New World vulture–have filtered down through the centuries to the present time.  Many claim to have seen a nineteenth century photograph of a ‘thunderbird,’ though no-one has yet been able to produce it.  Was this the creature that famously tried to carry off young Marlon Lowe from his garden in Lawndale, Illinois on July 25, 1977?  Is it extinct, is it entirely mythical, or do some individuals still lurk here and there somehow unnoticed by civilized man?”

Becoming familiar with the descriptions of the birds in question, I was skeptical then due to the singularity of this case, the possibility of a misconception in the birds’ identification, and, later, to the understanding from the historic records of known cases of human abductions by birds. 

The Lawndale incident has been expounded repeatedly; a detailed source is in a book I also cited in UAC3:  Hall, Thunderbirds:  America’s Living Legends of Giant Birds (1988, 2004 editions).  That summer evening, eight people would witness the occurrence of two gigantic birds—four adults and three children at the Lowe residence, and, belatedly, an anonymous “Mr. Cox,” also of Lawndale, who would actually be the first to witness them.  The pair flew over the Lowe’s home, and one bird attempted to mob one of the children, who successfully avoided it.  In that moment, either this bird (or the other) then attacked ten-year-old Marlon Lowe.

“One bird picked him up by the straps of his sleeveless shirt and lifted him about 2 feet (60 centimeters) off the ground.  As the bird carried the boy’s 65-pound (30-kilogram) weight, Marlon screamed for his mother and punched at the bird.  The bird dropped him to the ground after flying 35 or 40 feet (10.6 or 12 meters) from the backyard to the frontyard.”

Marlon Lowe called out for his mother, Ruth, who arrived on the scene, in addition to her husband, Jake Lowe, and their guests, James and Betty Daniels.  With Lowe’s release, the bird and its companion flew towards Kickapoo Creek, which runs north of this Logan County community.  Recalling the incident three decades later, Lowe, about age 40, described their movements in the 2007 documenty film Monsterquest:  Birdzilla.

“And then it flew up into this tree right here and tried to land in the tree right here.  It was too–too much weight so it just took off flying on out of the tree and headed for the creek.”

 

Detail of the counties of Illinois, highlighting Logan County in red, Lawndale marked therein, with other counties (pink) which had similar sightings July–August, 1977.  

Also marked (blue, violet) are counties representing areas which had similar episodes of giant bird sightings–these belatedly revealed subsequent to the 1977 Lawndale series of sightings (having happened prior to that year).  These additional cases will be discussed separately, and I am now learning of other claims of observations of mysterious giant birds in Illinois; the above map is thus not comprehensive.  

Certain reports from the 1977 Lawndale series of sightings I have rejected as relevant to this study, that they could not be observations of condors, nor does the map reflect inclusion of them.  Most significant is my concurrence with the argument for Turkey Vultures Cathartes aura as the basis of the aforementioned (first paragraph) amateur video of John Huffer at Lake Shelbyville, Illinois.

 

DESCRIPTION

The description of the birds seems to similarly hold for both, one and the same.  Marlon Lowe in his later interview gave a concise description–

“But it looked kind of  like a condor, because it had a white ring and was black.”

This statement immediately begs consideration for the one bird species with known plumage characters that fits the description, the subject of this site.

Eric Kilby

 

The witnesses’ testimonies supported that comparison.  Ruth Lowe characterized their coloration as “very black.”  This may have been referring to the intensity of coloration, or it may have been an address on the prevalence of black in its plumage.  

Hall offers an inconsistent series of statements in Thunderbirds.. (see pp. 15–17 of the later edition).  He notes that “those present consistently described both birds as entirely black except for a white ring on their long necks.”  The notion of their being entirely black suggests something that is not a match for an Andean Condor, which in the adults has an upperwing with white panels on the secondaries and much of the tertial feathers.

However, not all those present ascribed the coloration this way, and just four paragraphs further Hall mentions how guest James Daniels  “noticed white fuzz around the necks and wingtips,” describing them to Dan Tackett of the Lincoln, Illinois Courier as “overgrown vultures.”  Their wingspans were estimated to be about eight to ten feet.  These were estimates based on observation.  (I can imagine that the birds were indeed large, but I stress that it is often difficult if not impossible to make a measurement  without a proper measuring technique.)

Ruth Lowe is also described as specifically identifying the birds as California Condors Gymnogyps californianus, following her own researches.  They could not have been California Condors, as these images show.

In the adult Andean Condor, the upperwing panel reveals the white feathering as mentioned.  (Notations right below the inner secondaries show where some corresponding, partially-white feathers may be found on adult Californians.)  These, and a narrow white panel on the tertials represent the limit of white on its upperwings.  In the Californian, the ruff is never white, and that species is rejected as the identity of those described from Lawndale.

The Andean underwing is uniform blackish.  It is possible that some witnesses may have noticed the underwing and assumed that the upperwing was of the same color, but coloration of feathering is hardly ever the same in the upper/underwings of most birds; some species (Bateleur Terathopius ecaudatus) may further have separately distinct underwing patterns, one pattern for each underwing. (In the Californian, the underwing is blackish with white underwing coverts).

In an interview in the Monsterquest film, Mike Wallace of the Zoological Society of San Diego said that “it sounds like what he is describing with a white ring around its neck would not be the California Condor but an Andean Condor.”

Overall, I feel that the description of the Lawndale birds is a match for the Andean.  Though Hall first suggests an absolute in what the witnesses described, he is not quoting them, and as a major inconsistency with what witness James Daniels described in the birds showing white on their wings, the notion of entirely black deserves rejection.  From Daniels’ testimony my arguments rest for a diagnostic identification.  By default, the birds–both–were female, considering that no mention was made of either having a caruncle, a diagnostic feature of the male condor.

My own earlier skepticism began differently when I had first read of the details of the Lawndale incident.  I had speculated that the reference to white ring was an interpretative impression of the witnesses, and it seemed more plausible that those words might also serve as an impression of whitish or pale hackles on an immature eagle (Bald Eagle), and that this individual which attacked Lowe may have had an unusually fair amount of pale mottling on its neck to allow for the description.  Various theories were presented in the wake of the incident in 1977, these incorporating into question such large birds as the Great Blue Heron Ardea herodias, Peacock Pavo cristatus, and the Marabou Stork Leptoptilos crumeniferus, the latter due to the coincidence of one having escaped from Chicago’s Brookfield Zoo at the time, but none of these are without serious distinctions of plumage characters from that of the mystery birds.  (The behavior and plumage characters of the storks comparative to that of the Andean Condor, particularly those of Leptoptilos, are an unlikely discussion and will be presented in a separate, forthcoming post.) 

I had also become familiar with accounts of attacks on humans, particularly attacks on children, by raptors, among which include the notorious case of Svanhild Hansen Hartvigsen (Ørnerovet på Leka (Roestad, 2006)), who was allegedly abducted by a White-tailed Eagle Haliaaetus albicilla in Leka, Norway in 1932.  It would also seem plausible that in North America a true raptor of the Accipitridae such as a Bald Eagle Haliaaetus leucocephalus or a Golden Eagle Aquila chrysaetos canadensis may have capabilities of being rapacious (see link [6] below in “Explanation for..” section).  However, as my hypothesis demonstrates, it could not hold for an American vulture of the Cathartidae.

Three years ago one summer day I took an opportunity to view the Monsterquest: Birdzilla documentary.  Before I finished watching, I was completely changed, and this website is in no small way a product of my conversion.  It was not so much the singular account of the Lawndale incident, but that of a similar case the film evaluated from a region well known for its reports of rare birds–southern Texas.  I also allow credence for the species accounts and detailed maps in the Smithsonian Birds of North America (Alsop, ed., 2000) for inspiration.  I could begin to see how a pattern of accidental movement among birds could perpetuate the appearance of those seen in an unlikely place in the central U.S. such as Illinois.  

Yet that did not remedy the greatest question about this particular episode, that a child was transported off the ground for a brief period.  “It would be I would have to say impossible for an Andean Condor to lift something with its feet,” Mike Wallace relayed in Monsterquest.  “Andeans, as well as the California Condor you see behind me [exhibit of the San Diego Zoo] … they have feet much like a Turkey, that can’t grasp or lift.”  

In unadorned terms Lowe described it this way in his interview–

“It picked me up.”

“Something just swooped down and grabbed me.”

One obscure particular of this account was given consideration in my construction of an argument for the attack on Marlon Lowe, and I am confident that what I am describing is the likely scenario.  

EXPLANATION FOR THE INCIDENT OF THE ATTACK ON MARLON LOWE

As follows, my verbatim notes (October 29, 2012) from a draft essay, almost all of which I retain for argument, explaining what probably transpired when the bird, this being an adult female Andean Condor Vultur gryphus, attacked Lowe.

———…To begin, the various reports of the Lawndale sighting are inconsistent.  Loren Coleman’s summary of the event based on his interviews with Marlon Lowe and his mother, Ruth Lowe, are articulate [2], though bearing inconsistencies with a revised edition of a book Coleman co-authored, Thunderbirds by Mark A. Hall [29].

The problem with this is how it is assumed that a 56-pound human being was lifted–when that may have been an apparency.  It is simply the oversight of those who have taken account of the circumstances that has perpetuated the unfair assertion that no known bird could have done it.  Lowe, rather than being lifted, was momentarily buoyed.  While running across his property, he was mobbed by one of the pair as it descended; its distended [extended] feet struck at him.  What is critical is what happened in that very moment; Coleman’s summary does not allude to it, but it is pointedly detailed in Hall as well as in Shuker [42].  The prolonged basal phalanx of the condor’s second toe prevents, as well as [in] American vultures (unlike the Old World vultures of the Accipitridae), clutching or gripping [44].  Despite the proposals of many who believe that these birds are some type of living relict of the teratorns or prehistoric vultures, the fossil record shows that this foot structure also applies to all known species in the Cathartoidea and the Neocathartoidea [14].  This, as well as the fact that the musculature of the foot is very weak.  (Also relevant are the assertions, proven to be erroneous [6, 34], from general works that raptors in general cannot carry off live prey of any weight greater than their own [38]).  What is being ignored is the type of shirt that Lowe was wearing that evening–a tank top of sleeveless design with shoulder straps.  Had he been wearing a sleeved shirt, it would not have been possible for the the condor’s inner toes to have become enmeshed in the straps, as is the probable scenario.  The condor did not clutch his person.  The pull at his shirt straps caused the shirt to act like a drawstring sack, which allowed for momentum, reinforced by the momentous force generated from the bird’s own enormous proportions as it flew at him, and in this sense the condor, acting as a ten-foot hang-glider, buoyed itself.  Its lighter weight (weighing up to 33 pounds) would have actually been to its advantage.  This much would have been inadvertent, but the bird would have had a great advantage from the accelerating velocity of its descent (being able to gain speeds up to 40 mph) to allow for transportation (a “few feet” off the ground).  If Lowe was moving along a downward incline, this may have reinforced a quick push upwards and off the ground.  An upright person, running forward in the same direction as the bird and not inert, together with the critical component of how the shirt became a facilitator, all reinforce an argument that what would otherwise have been impossible did indeed transpire.  It is difficult to just lift something, but physical momentum allows, even for an unwitting creature, for cutting corners.  Lowe may have also endured a very slight ascent, then descent, before the bird released its hold.  The distance of displacement, even if it exceeded 40 feet, is plausible, and the loss of momentum, not Lowe’s resistance, was the reason for his release.  A possible experiment, using a carcass fitted in a manner to have straps secured to it, might replicate this scenario, but only in a manner that would allow for a voluntary movement on the part of the condor (monitored by video).

There is, probably most important of all, the question of duration.  Hall wrote that Ruth Lowe did not witness the actual “chasing and grabbing” that Coleman recorded, but rather, that she “emerged” from their residence to see her son’s “feet dangling in the air.”  Even considering his displacement, it is surmised, then, that the encounter of the condor buoying Lowe off the ground was momentary.

Ruth Lowe also saw that the condor was “trying to peck at Marlon.”  Attributed to condors is their propensity for attacking live prey such as weakened or sick young of livestock or guanacos.  Condors and vultures in general will not begin tearing at a carcass until it is putrified to the point where their beaks can tear into the flesh; in their patience they can only remove the softest parts of the animal such as the eyes and tongue, and days may pass before a kettle will complete a carcass.  The Andean Condor may be removed from being a true bird of prey, but this does not exclude it from posing a potential threat in this sense.  Specifically addressing the behavior of Andean [c]ondors, Nuttall wrote of how hardly “an instance is really known of their even assaulting an infant, though some credulous naturalists, with the exaggerating privilege [sic] of travellers, have given accounts of their killing young persons 10 or 12 years of age.  Their ability for such rapine is not to be doubted, but their natural cowardice forbids the attempt.  At the same time, it is not uncommon to see them follow and hover around a young bull until they have torn out his eyes and tonge” [36].  The sightings in Naranjito, Puerto Rico and McCook, Texas coincide[d] with a spate of animal mutilations in those respective areas, but there is nothing evidentiary to show that birds were responsible.  Though the condor is typically known to roost at night in its cold, mountainous habitat of the Andes, many, if not most, of the sightings, be it either perched or flying birds, took place in the early evening or later.  In captivity, they are capable of killing and tearing the skin of a live rabbit [50].  Reintroduced California Condors, which were prone to frequent populated areas as a consequence of the methods by which they were reared in captivity, were known to enter a guest home in Pine Mountain Club, California, causing much damage and tearing apart mattresses [35].  While it is here suggested that a condor could attack an unwary human target, ironically, the odds may be slight if presumptions are made to the effect that the circumstances to which a condor could [allegedly] transport anyone or thing have potential for recurrence.  Any assumptions are inadmissible that a large bird would naturally be inclined to pull on a child’s clothing….

2 Website:  http://the-magic-bullet.tumblr.com/post/9966990207/the-1977-lawndale-illinois-thunderbird-case  Timeline of events in bird sighting by Loren Coleman.  Downloaded Sept. 21, 2012

…

29  Hall, Mark A.  Thunderbirds; 2004 edition.  Cosimo Books, 2004

…

42  Shuker, Karl.  In Search of Prehistoric Monsters[.]  Blandford, 1995

…

44  Sick, Helmut.  Birds in Brazil.  Princeton University Press, 1993  [translated from the Portuguese]

…

14  Capparella, Angelo.  Cryptozoology, Volume 9, 1990 [review of Hall, Thunderbirds (1988 edn.), 94]

…

6  Website [Video]:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xz_LI5TLTY  “Eagle Carries a Goat.”  Downloaded Sept. 25, 2012  [attachment to summary]

…

34  Johnson, Simon.  “Takeaway Meal:  golden eagle snatches lamb from hillside.”  The Telegraph [UK], Feb. 28, 2011

…

38  Perrins, Christopher & Harrison, Colin.  Birds:  Their Life, Their Ways, Their World.  Reader’s Digest Books, 1976.  (Remark on raptors unable to lift large prey [61] and image of condor in flight [174])

…

36  Nuttall, Thomas.  A Manual of the Ornithology of the United States and of Canada.  The Land Birds.  Second Edition.  Hilliard, Gray and Company, 1840

…

50  Gailey, Janet & Bolwig, Niels.  “Observations on the Andean Condor (Vultur gryphus).”  The Condor.  Volume 75, 1973

…

35  Nielson, John.  Condor–To the Brink and Back.  Harper, 2007…———

TYPICAL FOOT STRUCTURE OF THE AMERICAN VULTURES

The bone structure of a typical cathartid vulture foot, based on the illustration in Birds in Brazil (Sick).  The basal phalanyx marked, this being prolonged in American vultures and which prevents them from manipulating with the toes, whereas a reduction would allow for grasping and clutching, as in the raptors of the Accipitridae.

Images to the right of this are comparative example claws representative of the vulture groups:  the smaller claw typical of the American vultures (Turkey Vulture, condors), the larger an example of that of an Old World vulture (Griffon Vulture Gyps fulvus).

ADDITIONAL REMARKS

In Hall’s book Ruth Lowe offered this assertion about the release of her son from the bird:

“He was hitting at it with his fists.  If he hadn’t, it never would have dropped him.”

The author of In Search of Prehistoric Monsters.. (cited above) narrates the release of Lowe similarly:  “[D]uring this brief but terrifying journey, Marlon was frantically punching up at the bird, which seemed to be experiencing no difficulty in transporting his 65 lb weight.  Happily, however, one of his punches evidently hit home, because the bird suddenly dropped him, and continued flying towards and over the camper, accompanied by its partner.”

This much, especially the latter description, stresses that it was Lowe’s efforts, his striking at the bird, which caused it to drop him.  I beg to differ.  In Monsterquest, Lowe himself recalled,

“It dropped me, and when it dropped me I just took off running.”

From my above explanation, I believe that his release was due to the bird’s loss of momentum, and I do not readily see how his hitting at the bird would have simply nor dramatically allowed for such as the bird had both feet attached to one strap of the shirt.  The “abductor” would likely not have relinquished such a hold from both feet at once when it was being struck.  It is invoked in In Search of Prehistoric Monsters.. that the bird “suddenly” dropping him, yet that, however it is supportive to my argument, is just inference.  Lowe’s above statement, however, is the last word, and by “[I]t dropped me,..” it is plausible to see that he is implying that his efforts were not necessarily the reason, thus supporting what I tend to believe.

Overall, I tend to think that Ruth Lowe’s confidence in interpreting her son’s actions as the reason for his release are a misinterpretation and a discrepancy to her testimony.  Yet I no less feel that this witness and the witnesses overall were sincere in making the episode known.  My report should allow them the overdue vindication they deserve.  It would be expected of any layperson observer to witness what each of them did to immediately assume that this Andean Condor was attempting to carry off Marlon.  Yet that was not precisely the case.  Some misconceptions, which do not supersede the underlying premise of the appearance and behavior of the birds, emerged from this incident.

If I were to change any part of my above explanation since writing three years ago, I would reconsider the impetus of the birds’ actions as, possibly, being something other than inadvertent.  Of recent, I came to realize the obvious:  the condor that attacked Lowe had one foot attached to a corresponding shirt strap.  I cannot remove the possibility of it being an intelligent creature–to such a degree it may have realized some advantaged in applying each foot in such a manner.  If he was not “abducted” in a strict sense, then perhaps this bird had motive for some type of attempted displacement.  Clearly this was a predatory action, and it and its partner invested in mobbing Lowe and attempting to attack another of the children present.  In perspective, I might also reconsider that the bird’s pull on Lowe’s shirt allowed any slight ascent, as I had suggested above, and rather, he was barely lifted from the ground and would be quickly released when the momentum of the bird’s own movements ended.

The type of shirt Marlon Lowe is wearing, from the above image taken from the 1977 interview, may be similar to what he was wearing during the incident.

Angelo Capparella of Illinois State University is a skeptic of the particulars of the Lawndale incident.  Speaking to the plausibility of a giant bird appearing in Illinois, a quarter-century ago he wrote that his “level of credulity would be different for reports of thunderbirds from, say, the yungas of Bolivia than for reports from central Illinois”  (Cryptozoology 10: 116).  Capparella was also opinionated in my interpretation of this account.  He wrote,

“The interpretation of the Lawndale incident in terms of explaining how a non-grasping foot could have buoyed Martin [sic] Lowe is novel.”

He also, as with numerous skeptics of such reports, drew attention to the necessity of a bird of such a size occurring in Illinois and not being previously noticed (Cryptozoology 9: 94).  My retort is simply that it is beside the point if the bird is a resident, breeding species where it is found, or if it has any capacity for continuing in a certain area for any period; it is only a question of what capacity it may have for any type of movement.  

 

FORTHCOMING DISCUSSION

This explanation is presented with a caveat.  There is more to it.  I feel that what is relayed is sufficient as for rectifying the “abduction” argument; what happened and what was believed to have happened have been afforded deserving clarification.  

In forthcoming posts, including the next [UAC6, “Further Assessment of the Lawndale Incident,” in preparation] I will address related issues as follows–

→  Climate patterns and the movement of birds with particular evaluation of this case expounded.

→  The African Crowned Eagle Stephanoaetus coronatus as a point of topic as evaluated in Monsterquest:  Birdzilla.

→  An evaluation of related sightings in Illinois in 1977 as part of the Lawndale series.

→  Subsequent revelations from other witnesses belatedly describing mysterious giant birds in the state as a consequence of the report of the Lawndale incident.

→  Assessment of rare, accidental birds in Illinois.

→  Related accounts of attacks on human beings by birds with especial relevance to the Lawndale incident.  

→  Most importantly, a discussion on the movements of Andean Condors.

This evaluation explains the event of the attack of a bird on Lowe and the identity of the pair being Andean Condors.  Granted, the birds match the description of the Andean, it can at once be assumed that, in this singular instance, the question of their actual provenance does not reduce the veracity of what arguments are being presented.  It is a separate matter (emphasis mine) to question how they arrived where they did.  However, I believe that the condors’ appearance in Illinois was a natural phenomenon, one which will be described separately.  There is also the given possibility of the appearance of any bird not in its native habitat being an instance of an escape, and this should be kept in mind when considering these arguments, however not all points being fully evaluated here.

Mathew Louis

 

4 On a Record of the Condor from Panama

4  On a Record of the Condor from Panamá.

My researches relating to the Andean Condor are at once a study of the species itself, but one with a focus on its distribution.  The underlying arguments I have put forward, that the condor is a creature which is capable of extra-limital movement and which has also, to a major degree, demonstrated such movement, are the nuclei of my thesis and without which would nullify the whole of these arguments.  

A discussion on the distribution of this or any species must begin with records of occurrence, either as records of breeding behaviors or of non-breeding movements or dispersal.  Presently, the Andean Condor has been recorded as a resident, breeding bird in six South American nations, and, in addition, a reintroduced resident population of a small number of individuals is now active in Venezuela, where the wild population had been extirpated by 1960.  Also, there are records of extra-limital movements in two other South American countries, Brazil and Paraguay.  Thus, this summates where the Andean Condor has been known by legitimate, authentic record, from the literature.  There are also birds in captivity around the world, and the erroneous record of early writers who ascribed the Andean as a North American raptor.  

Given the profile of my presentation, it may be difficult to argue for the Vultur gryphus being capable of extra-limital movement, especially due to the lack of any known extra-limital movement of it in South America or areas proximate to the Andean chain.  To argue that cases of giant birds seen in the United States are likely condors wandering four to six thousand miles from their true domain may at first seem difficult to accept due to the lack of known extra-limital movement from the records themselves.  However, forthcoming posts and discussion will hopefully address and offer remedy to the objections.

Since having begun to scrutinize records of Andean Condor distribution, I was offered a vague comment–no reference–about the condor having a single record of occurrence from a country not part of the contagion noted above–the Republic of Panamá.  Through a tedious route I was, eventually, able to trace the actual source of this assertion, but to argue for any published record of it in that country was something I saw as a conspicuous point which needed rectification.  I examined the following:

A Guide to the Birds of Panama (Ridgely & Gwynne)

Birds of the Republic of Panama (Wetmore)

The Birds of Panama:  A Printable Checklist Including 972 Species (Montañez)

The Unofficial Addenda and Corrigenda to Robert S. Ridgely and John A. Gwynne’s “A Guide to the Birds of Panama” (Montañez)

Xenornis, [website of Darien Montañez, not recently updated]

Sociedad Audubon de Panamá, website

A review of the above left me without any references whatsoever to the Andean Condor, either by vernacular or scientific name.

Having taken up the question again more recently, however, I was eventually supplied with a link from the site of the Aves de Rapina Brasil, which included “[U]m éspecime depositado em Michigan State University (MSU Verterbrate Collection  – http://www.groms.de) datado de 1905 foi coletado no Panamá.”  [Link cited therein unavailable.]

http://avesderapinabrasil.com/vultur_gryphus.htm

The specimen to which they are referring I traced to the Michigan State University collection on Ornis, also through the VertNet database.

http://www.ornis.net.org/

http://portal.vertnet.org/search?q=vultur

http://portal.vertnet.org/o/msu/or?id=8335m

RECORD OF THE SPECIMEN–

Modified

2015-04-09

BasisofRecord

Preserved Specimen

OccurrenceID

urn:catalog:MSU:OR:8335M

CatalogNumber

8335M

OccurrenceRemarks

“Locality information was spelled as “”Viriguas Peak, Prov. of Veriguas”” in the original written record.”

RecordedBy

Scott Turner

EstablishmentMeans

native

OccurrenceStatus

present

Preparations

egg

EventDate

1905-12-25

HigherGeography

Central America | Panama | Veraguas Province |

StateProvince

Veraguas Province

Locality

Veraguas Peak

ScientificName

Vultur gryphus

TaxonRank

species

On September 17 I wrote to the Collections Manager, Laura Abraczinskas, Michigan State University, who was able to provide me with additional information.  The specimen was received about March 21/22, 1956, by museum curator Rollin H. Baker.  It had been received as a gift “from the Turner home on East Mt. Hope Avenue” in Lansing, Michigan.  “Mr. Turner was born in Lansing in 1880; his father was born here in 1850.  He is a prominent mining engineer (grad. U of Mich.).  He lives in Greenwich, Conn.  He and Mrs. Turner have no children.  Mr. Turner is a sportsman and was president of the Turtle Lake Club and a member of the Explorers Club and the Boone and Crockett Club.”

In late August, 2006 the record was served to the Ornis and GBIP database portals, and later to the iDigBio database portal.  Prior to this, there is nothing to show for an actual record of it, print or otherwise.

In addition, I independently learned that the collector, Scott Turner, was a mining prospector in Panamá in the years following his graduation from the University of Michigan in 1902.  Turner contributed to the Mining and Scientific Press (“Mining in Panama,” 96: 130–132).

     “The district to the north of Cañazas, marked by the two peaks of Viriguas that rise to an altitude of about 3500 ft. and are visible for a radius of 20 or 30 miles, is perhaps the most interesting region in Panama, not as much from any chance of successful mining in the future as from the evidence of work that has been done there in days gone by.  Viriguas is about 30 miles from Cañazas, over extremely rough trails, and three good-sized rivers, the Cañazas, Piedra, and San Pablo, must be crossed, together with many smaller streams.”

           

Two photograph illustrations [131] from Turner’s report.

Map of Panamá–area of Veraguas province highlighted, with approximate location of collection site marked.

Panamá’s provincial boundaries were different then, from this 1912 map, but later changes do not allow question as to the collection of the egg being in some other region or province of the country.

That an egg of the Andean Condor was presumably collected in Panamá gave me reason to consider the condor having, substantiated from this one instance, a record of some attempted breeding there.  My comment was forwarded to Pamela Rasmussen, also of Michigan State, who examined the specimen.  Measurements of the egg (96.5 x 59.6 mm.) revealed an unexpected reversal as to its identity–it is not an Andean Condor at all.  In actuality, the size of the egg fits very closely withing the range of that of the King Vulture Sarcor[h]amphus papa (89.4–93.7 x 60.7–67.1 mm.) and smaller than that of the Andean (102–126 X 65–72 mm.).  See Schönwetter, Handbuch der Oologie (3: 137).  The large end is narrower with the greatest diameter more towards the center than typical King Vulture eggs, but nonetheless the texture and shape are close to that species, this diagnosis also including consideration of any bird groups which lay large white eggs such as albatrosses.

Overall, I do not dispute the diagnosis.  Thus, this “record” of the Andean Condor in Panamá, Veraguas province, is heretofore treated as erroneous.  In the spirit of being comprehensive towards assessing the distribution of a species (which for the condor my arguments mandate consideration) or the records of species within a certain geographic entity, my summary may be of interest to those who are preparing lists of the birds found in Panamá, however the Andean Condor is not an “established” species there, the western historic limit of its Colombian distribution just 130 miles from the country.  Treatment of the record would likewise prevent any further, possible difficulties relating to it.  The specimen is not an Andean Condor; it is closest to the King Vulture and in my opinion should be treated as such, the latter a form common to Panamá as well as to tropical America.

That the one and only purported record of Andean Condor’s occurrence in Panamá–and in any country not part of South America–can now be disputed and also categorically rejected does not, ultimately, help the arguments I am making, noting the lack of its known extra-limital records in the whole of the continent.  This is a difficulty which will be later given discussion on a broader evaluation of the question of the Andean’s occurrence in a separate report.  Indeed I have reason to presume that accidental birds, in their movements, would naturally pass over land and not water and will cross the isthmus, but again the reason for the lack of records, specifically the lack of those in Panamá, is a separate issue.

The discussion also underscores the relevance of an examination of the distribution and behavior of related species such as the King Vulture.

The Michigan State collection also holds a prepared egg (MSU:OR:4906M) which was ascribed to the Andean Condor, but, as was relayed to me, this is in fact an example of the European Black Vulture Aegypius monachus, and for both this and the Turner collection specimen should their records be emended.

The reason for the lapse of identification may have been, possibly, a lack of judgment on the collector, who was not familiar with nor unable to compare the eggs of both species.  It may have also been, perhaps, a consequence of conflated scientific names, from either Turner or, possibly, Rollin H. Baker, when taking inventory of the Turner collection (if its label was altered or removed).  At the beginning of the early 20th century Sarcorhamphus (or Sarcoramphus) was the genus name used in place of Vultur, with Cathartes or Gypagus often used for Sarcorhamphus.  As both species bear certiain affinities, they have even been treated as congeneric (J. E. Gray, List of the Specimens in the Collection of the British Museum, 2nd ed., 2–3; (1848)).

I am grateful to Laura Abraczinskas, Michigan State University, for confirming the specimen in the collection; Pamela Rasmussen, Michigan State University, for diagnosis of the specimen; and to Douglas Russell, Natural History Museum at Tring, for providing an example image of a specimen for comparison.

Mathew Louis

3 The Vulture of West Rushville, Ohio.

Many stories and eyewitness testimonies of mysterious giant birds having been purportedly observed in the United States, and in North America in general, are documented in Thunderbirds: America’s Living Legends of Giant Birds by Mark A. Hall. The book was first published in 1988 and was followed by a subsequent 2004 edition, which itself was reprinted in 2007 (New York: Cosimo, Inc.), the latter I examined.

On 81, Hall relays a 1972 story of a live vulture which was found in a Fairfield County, Ohio community:

 “Though not as large as other birds considered here, notice should be given to an enigmatic bird of prey that turned up in Ohio in 1972.  Its wingspan was 5 feet (1.7 meters).  Reportedly, it was identified by people at Ohio State University as an immature white-backed vulture (Pseudogyps) native to Africa.  The bird had been shot in one wing when it was found at West Rushville, east of Lancaster.  No one volunteered any explanation for this bird’s appearance.  Incidents such as this frustrate efforts to sort out with confidence the reported appearances of unusual animals.”

Page 190 refers to two sources, features articles of the The Lancaster Eagle-Gazette for August 8 and August 23, 1972.  On December 6, 2012, I queried by email the Fairfield County District Library of Lancaster, Ohio, and their staff (source anonymous) was gracious to have retrieved for me the requested information, which I present here.

 

from Lancaster Eagle-Gazette, August 8, 1972

 

from Lancaster Eagle-Gazette, August 23, 1972

The reports do not explain a diagnosis for the actual species, which by default would be Gyps africanus Salvadori, 1865 if it was characterized as a “white-backed vulture, native to Africa.”  Hall’s use of the genus name Pseudogyps refers to earlier separate treatment of that species and the White-rumped or Indian White-backed Vulture G. bengalensis (Gmelin, 1788) as distinct from other Gyps (the name can be construed as a subgenus).  When I first became enlightened on this case, I had some speculations on the identity of the vulture species described, especially because the image I have from the August 8 Eagle-Gazette was taken from a transparency in the library’s holdings–not the original, which would allow for better scrutiny of the bird depicted.  Neither do I have an example of the original photograph.

The same image from above, tone inverted to emphasize the markedly white area delineating its outstretched wings.

Prior to querying the Fairfield County Public Library, I had interpreted Hall’s reference to suggest that the vulture was not alive when found.  Though it is clear that it was then “sent to” Hueston State Woods Park, this does not necessarily mean that it would have been released there, fully recovered or not.  Its ultimate disposition is not known from my researches.  I had tried querying the Ohio Department of Natural Resources but did not receive a response.  There are no specimens Gyps (Pseudogyps) vultures in the Ohio State University collection (pers. comm. Angelika Nelson, September 17/28, 2012).  Three zoological collections in the state were queried (June 19, 2013):  I would like to know, from the history of the Zoo during the period 1970–1972, were there any reports of escaped or missing vultures of this species?  Justin Smith of the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium informed me that their collection had two individuals of white-backed vultures (not further specific), both brought to the zoo in 1985; both had also died there, one in 1987, and the other in 1991. I learned that no vultures were reported missing from the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden: “[A]s far as we can tell, there were no missing or escaped vultures of this species during that time.” (pers. comm. Todd Miller, June 20, 2013).  No reply from Cleveland Metroparks to a similar general query I made.

Currently, Cleveland Metroparks Zoo includes a pair of White-backed Vultures (in addition to a pair of Andean Condors and a representative of the Hooded Vulture Necrosyrtes monachus).  The Cincinnati Zoo includes a single Rüppell’s Griffon Gyps rueppellii as well some four condors (2♀, 2 ♂).

The origin of the vulture of West Rushville was not clear, and as it is undoubtedly intriguing, did I have reason to question its identification.  Many accounts which I believe represent observations of Andean Condors (forthcoming posts) originated in Ohio, among many other places, and in a several of these Ohio sightings the condor was, in fact, diagnostically identified.  My findings on the Andean also show the summer months being the most prevalent time of year in which the sightings in North America occur; the timing of the finding of this individual in question furthers that intrigue. However, I tend to think that the given wingspan of this West Rushville bird (1.7 m.) might not apply to a condor as the measurement seems insufficient to what a juvenile would demonstrate when fully fledged and capable of flight; it is also a difficult matter here to argue for a juvenile Andean Condor traveling as an accidental as no other characters of the bird were identified to supply additional argument.  This, therefore, may have, more likely and in conformity with its diagnosis, been an instance of escape from a zoo or sanctuary, and perhaps some small closure can be reached with regards to evaluating the case.  No further information will be available to challenge the diagnosis despite the similarity a juvenile Andean bears with that of many of the Old World vulture species.  Given that Cincinnati is the closest of the three major cities to West Rushville, I might speculate as to the bird having escaped from their collection (that one was in the collection at the time) yet was not properly accounted as an escape.

There is also, to no less a degree, the possibility of its provenance from some other more remote location, and likewise was it not properly accounted.  I find argument in the occasional possibility of a zoological collection having an escape, even if it be a vulture, yet not always reporting, and I assume this due to the documented sighting of an unusual species completely unknown as a caged bird (Grey Go-away-bird Corythaixoides concolor), also African, which was reported in Gilbert, Arizona (Maricopa County) in 2007.  The nearby World Wildlife Zoo of nearby Glendale does so happen to have these included in its aviary, but the zoo’s representative had claimed that none its go-away-birds were then missing.  In the case of this mystery vulture, it would have been convenient had it been first seen near a metropolitan area (as was the case with the above go-away-birds and with the 2011 report of the Rufous-collared Sparrow Zonotrichia capensis [septentrionalis] of Georgetown, Colorado) to readily invoke it being an escape.  Indeed Fairfield County is very close to Columbus, but I can only further speculate that, as I was informed that the Columbus Zoo’s examples of Gyps africanus date only back to 1985, their records either do not go back as far as 1972 or perhaps one of the other Gyps, closely resembling the White-backed, was represented in their collection (if the West Rushville bird had been misidentified to species).

 

It was described as a “big black bird,” but as the illustration below shows, that characterization is overly generalized.

Plate IX from Barboza du Bocage, Ornithologie d’Angola, of Gyps africanus.  Illustrated by John Gerrard Keulemans.

PROBABLE GRIFFON VULTURE IN FLORIDA

Also relevant to the discussion are two anomalous cases I will share relating to Old World Vultures having been reported in the United States.  The first of these pertains to a Gyps vulture having escaped from a zoo in Palm Beach County, Florida, in 1977.

In The Birdlife of Florida (Stevenson & Anderson), the authors mention—

“[Gyps sp.:  “Griffon-type Old World Vulture”]

Distribution:  Resident from s Europe to s Africa and w to se Asia (7 spp.)

Florida Status:  Escape.  P. Sykes reported an imm., not identified to species, from Lion Country Safari (Palm Beach Co.), flying “in and out of this [wildlife tourist] attraction” (Kale 1977a).”  [158]

Their original source (American Birds 31: 990, Florida Region by Herbert W. Kale II) I also quote—

“RAPTORS–Note to birders in the Palm Beach County area–an imm. Griffon-type Old World vulture from Lion Country Safari escaped being pinioned, and flies in and out of this tourist attraction daily to parts of the surrounding county (PWS).”

Plate [I] of Vultur fulvus from John Gould’s Birds of Europe (1832–1837).  Hand-colored lithograph by John and Elizabeth Gould.

EGYPTIAN VULTURE IN VIRGINIA

Nineteenth-century illustration of an adult and immature Egyptian Vulture by John Gerrard Keulemans, plate 322 from Dresser, History of the Birds of Europe.

In their second edition of Hawks (2001), William S. Clark and Brian K. Wheeler include an entry for another Old World Vulture species having been reported in the states–the Egyptian Vulture Neophron percnopterus.  “The Egyptian Vulture, a small Old World Vulture, has occurred as a vagrant once in Virginia” [286].  This case is in reference to a December, 1985 sighting of the Egyptian in the state along the Chesapeake Bay.  The circumstances allude to the likelihood that the bird was not an escape, but rather a ship-assisted bird.  That the vulture was likely ship-assisted proved a fitting argument to my researches on the Andean Condor, and in forthcoming posts in this series will I elaborate further on this topic.

Once a common species on its breeding grounds and often a vagrant to the Britain in the time of the Goulds and Keulemans, the Egyptian Vulture is now like many of its congeners in decline.  In 2007, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) dramatically revised its status from a Least Concern species to Endangered.  Likewise for the White-backed Vulture, which was also Least Concern a decade ago but in 2012 was listed as Endangered.  This a poignant aspect of the underlying mysteries of these remarkable birds–each individual, however remarkable its predicament, may ultimately come to serve as a crucial factor in the respective fates of their species.

Mathew Louis

 

2 The Unknown Andean Condor: Introduction

THE UNKNOWN ANDEAN CONDOR:  INTRODUCTION

In the annals of cryptozoology and the more offbeat scientific literature, no general work or discussion would be comprehensive without allusion to the ponderous, persisting topic that long has been treated as mythology:  North America’s thunderbird.  For a long time, I, too, had discredited the accounts, in particular, the claim that in 1977, in Lawndale, Illinois, a giant bird attacked a child.  Only with careful consideration of the facts relating to similar cases, most notably the 1976 “Big Bird” series of sightings in Texas, was I able to construct a hypothesis based on patterns relating to these and various other accounts.

Myth it is no more.  What was alleged in Lawndale actually did happen.  It is only one of a vast number of cases that, from my examination, tell of a remarkably similar pattern that can allude to only one known species as their origin.  That basis is the subject of this blog:  Vultur gryphus, the Andean Condor.

My interest in stories of mysterious giant birds started from a passage I read relating to the purported attempt of a bird attacking a child in the town of Lawndale, Illinois in 1977.  After examining a documentary film about the subject, which expounded on the incident and included interviews with the witnesses of the attack as well as witnesses of other similar claims, I began to investigate the matter further.  While I had long disputed the veracity of the aforementioned story, I have now reached a staggering premise:  not only was the story from Lawndale true, it is just one incident of a vast number of anomalous mysteries of which I have reviewed that, in my opinion, all have basis in one and the same known species of bird:  the Andean Condor.  Not only were Andean Condors present in Lawndale, Illinois in 1977, there have been a greater number of accounts which speak to its presence in that and many other states and regions, from the times antedating European exploration in North America, and also which speak to its presence throughout Latin America and worldwide.

Three years have passed since I took up serious interest in the study of the Andean Condor, and I have decided that creating a blog as a way to disseminate my findings would be necessary.  This discussion could not be more interdisciplinary.  The types of cases I have examined, as also noted in the outline summary below, fall into various disciplines of study and were derived from general works relating to Fortean phenomena, cryptozoology, Native American studies, ghost stories, cultural folklore and mythology, exploration in the Americas by European explorers, and unidentified flying object phenomena (UFOs), among other areas–these aside from an ornithological and zoological discussion on this species. 

The arguments I am presenting are twofold.  First, I feel that the Andean Condor applies to the morphological and behavioral descriptions of the birds or “entities” as described in these cases; many of these being diagnostic descriptions of the condor or falling within a threshold that warrants evaluation to this discussion (these latter group of accounts I treat as “approximately attributable”).  Second, the cases mandate explanation for the condor’s movements.  The argument of its extra-limital movements was difficult to reach, but I have arrived at a stunning realization that likewise will be, eventually, expounded here.  

The second prong of my thesis by itself would require less writing and effort, and I had at first believed that I could somehow present my overall “summary” as a single published research paper, or present it as a single blog post.  I had queried Jim Ducey with interest to present such a complete report on his site Wildbirds Broadcasting.  Since then, little progress has been made by way of preparing such a report–this simply due to the unceasing accumulation of material relevant to the discussion that I have made this year and the research involved.  Ultimately, I realized that it would be necessary to create a blog, with the gradual addition of entries relating to various elements of discussion on the condor, this alleviating the burden of trying to both present a complete report at once and one which might forsake a thorough evaluation.  

This new blog, “The Unknown Andean Condor,” will allow a full articulation of my arguments and will in essence serve as a monograph of the condor, all of the forthcoming blog entries pertaining to this species, or having relevance to the plight of vultures in general.

As they appear, my posts will include a variety of topics related to this theme: 

—-The identity of the thunderbird to a known species

—-The 1977 attack on a child in Lawndale, Illinois, and a significant detail almost wholly ignored in any prior discussions on the account

—-The error American historians perpetuated in translating French explorer Jacques Marquette’s description of the petroglyph which became known as the Piasa

—-Presentation of an early 18th century map, not previously incorporated on anything written on the subject, which depicts a figure that may be related to the discussion on the Piasa 

—-The correlation between contemporary sightings of giant birds in the United States and Native American legends of the thunderbird, as well as the Jersey Devil

—-How climatic patterns affect the movements of birds, particularly South American avifauna,  and help explain the reason for the appearance of these giants

—-Why proper account has yet to be made of the “thunderbird”–the Andean Condor–away from its natural domain

—-Discussion relating to cases of unidentified flying objects (UFOs), claims of “abduction” by witnesses of UFOs, cases relating to the chupacabra, cases of “flying humanoids,” as well as a discussion on ghost stories and observations of condors as the basis of various folk traditions throughout the Americas.

—-Consideration of the status of the Andean Condor, as well as discussion on the disposition of accidental birds appearing away from their normal distribution in the Andes

—-Discussions relating to vultures in general, including the fossil record and the current status of the living species

The term condor will generally be used in reference to the Andean Condor, exclusively, unless a posting mentions both this and the California Condor.  In-citation references to previous posts will being with UAC to designate this blog (“The Unknown Andean Condor”), followed by a numbered reference to the post in question.  This post is the second for this site, the first [UAC1] appearing September 14, 2015 as “About  “The Unknown Andean Condor”” in the About UAC link on this site.  Each post will include its numeric reference before the title.

My motivations to write are also due to consideration of the status of condors, and I feel that, as with the cases of the California Condor, Indian Vulture, Slender-billed Vulture, White-rumped Vulture, and the Red-headed Vulture, humanity may likewise come to having an urgent sense of obligation for the Andean Condor, particularly with regards to cases of individual birds which stray outside of their breeding range–a phenomenon which I am arguing holds in this species despite the lack of established records of its extra-limital movement

If the arguments I am making are sound, it is a matter of time and of making certain that proper account will indeed be made in finding and evidencing the “thunderbird” on the continent.

I have written previously for the aforementioned site Wildbirds Broadcasting on topics of mystery birds, including a report on William Bartram’s misidentified Caracaras (June 18, 2014), and some of my relevant contributions to Wikipedia are found here–https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Mmslouis

Mathew Spill Louis

Image of adult female condor courtesy Trisha Shears.