Thunderbirds!

Reid and Chas both sent me
this fascinating link to Prariemary on the "recent" presence of condors on the Montana plains. They apparently hung on until the buffalo were gone, and might return again if introduced in the wake of big herds-- see last post.

"When Claude Schaeffer, curator of the Museum of the Plains Indian, began to investigate birds in the lives of Blackft, he easily learned the names for the golden eagle (pitau), bald eagle (ksixkikini) and turkey vulture (pikoki) but the informants said there was another bird, a reeeeaaaaaally big bird: omcxsapitau or “big pitau.” Schaeffer became convinced this was “Gymnogyps californianus” or the California condor, the greatest of all flying birds of the north. This was unexpected for contemporary ornithologists and important in terms of understanding the ecology of the plains.

"It had already been established that condors participated in the eagle feast of salmon migration in the early quarter of the 19th century. One lone ornithologist named J. Fannin saw two “fine birds” just west of Calgary on September 10, 1896. The wingspread of these birds is eleven feet -- no wonder many of the stories of strange doin’s include big birds.
(Snip)
"Dick Sanderville at age 82 reported that Raven, aka “Hairy Face” or “Big Crow,” was going along from Old Agency to Little Badger and saw a big creature in a coulee. It was immense, dark, and had a feathered ruff under a bald head. This was 1897 and the sighting became the year marker: “When Big Crow saw the Omaxsapitau".

Another home for this Pleistocene relict would be welcome-- the more sites (see previous again) the better. They are already suffering from a "new" plague down south.