The Black Vault

Aquatank you have made some awesome connections in this thread.

After I read your last message I did some more research into a couple things.
One thing I thought was interesting is the picture you made of a Thunderbird looks somewhat similar to the Wanderlings (which are also depicted as thunderbirds). Now I am starting to see much more of a physical relation to that of a Turkey Vulture. Although how do we not know there were not other species of Thunderbirds, differentiating in some physical characteristics.

I think of the legends of Thunderbirds being able to create lightening out of their eyes and traveling with the clouds as Giant Greyish Blue birds, and quite larger than what I am seeing references for. My perception might be distorted by the visions I have had of them in my dreams, I have had many Visions of them. Actually now that I think about it I have also had visions of them being black and white. I'm seriously starting to wonder if they can have a chameleon effect, under weather conditions for flight. If they were not needed to create rain, they blended in with clouds and lighter skies. If they are creating and traveling through storms, they appear darker. Well its something I had not thought about before.

A chameleon bird species. Well you never know, its interesting that they are also clearly associated with shapeshifters in lore and legends.

Thanks for providing the links as well for the serrations. I'm guessing they definitely have to have good serration for their eating habits.

Aquatank wrote:The problem after a quick look for this is large flying birds don't grow feathers fast enough so they have built in biological strategies to keep what they have.

Never even thought of this. That link you put along with this, was absolutely fascinating to me. And I think you are spot on with this. What could be the possibilities of finding a Thuderbird feather, pretty slim considering the information you presented, and it now makes alot more sense to me why there have not been reports to this, however, I did find one story so far. Called the Boy and the Giant feather. They also refer to the wanderling as Thunderbirds in this article.

http://the-wanderling.com/giant-feather.html

Here is a quote from the story I want to throw out there:

The loss of the Buffalo would have a devastating effect on the migratory habits of birds of such size. Not everybody makes the connection, but it is pretty simple stuff, without the herds, migration became very difficult and many of the young birds as well as some of the adults died on their way south. We are talking twenty-five foot wingspan Teratorn type birds, animals so huge they couldn't hunt in woodlands or heavy foilage. They needed large open area suchs as the Great Plains or the Argentine Pampas to navigate and hunt.

Never would have made a connection of the loss of buffalo having an effect on their success for survival. I'm curious to see if there are more conenctions and information relating to this, and will have to do some research into that as well.

Here is some more interesting information concerning ThunderBirds in the Northern areas.
http://sped2work.tripod.com/giantbird.html

Aquatank, you added some great points in how difficult it could be trying to get any type of surveillance. There is hardly any possible way to know their exact strength in senses.
Even a rotting piece of opossum might not do the trick to delude their senses of something foreign in their presence. Might be taking extreme stealth to a much higher level.
But it still doesn't keep me from wanting to take a long arse hike. lol

http://z.about.com/d/paranormal/1/0/r/Q/1/thunderbird.jpg

Aquatank is this just a fake picture you think ?

The loss of the buffalo is an interesting note. I saw that quickly. As a prey species a young calf would be about as good as it gets though, even with a buffalos temperment its not whjat I 'd posit as prey though except scavenged.

However if you've noted my bit about edible insects in the alternative futures you might notice they pack a heck of alot more protein and colries for their size than beef and especially more than fish. So there is another extinction that could be attributed to the loss of Thunderbirds if this was a staple (note it dissapears 1905, and Bison are just starting to be protected in the late 19th century.). That insect being the Rocky Mountain Locust, an 1874 sighting of a plague/swarm was an estimated at 198,000 square miles and a total weight of 27.5 Million tons. Such swarms if regular may have been prey (or worse the Thunderbirds may have been their prey, that particular species was noted for being heavy eaters.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocky_Mountain_locust

Okay getting more stealthy with cameras, If one could get in range without getting detected A reflecting telecope attached to a camera would work great. I messed around with a 8 inch reflector about 2 months ago and I could literally see the groves in a quarter inch screwhead as if they were two inches from face at about 50 yards. And I once saw Mars' polar ice caps with a reflector telescope about twice that size. So maybe just building your own 8-20 inch reflector and pointing it a suspected mountain peak a few miles away would be right for initial research. Put inside a house and the bird would never know it was there. Still I'm not sure it'd be good after dusk.

As for the photo is it fake. I'm guessing yes its fake, first its a pterosaur & second its with what looks to be cowboy westerners of the 19th century, those were boom years for paleontology and everybody tried to out do each other with the newest discovery. Thats the picture is authentic to period as a mock up of an animal, the second likely is its another Studio photo from the cancelled show Freaky Links, they did a number of such photos for the show usually with civil war types. ?However I'm also noticing some forced perspective in the photo, that is noting the grass size reeding it looks like the cowboys are almost nine to twelve feet behind the mock up, making them look smaller. Another problem is picture grain, B&W photos back then were quite good at detail and the cowboys are bad grain while the mockup is fairly good grain, doesn't make sense unless its a photoshop job IMHO.

BTW My pic was a combo Turkey Buzzard and Harpy Eagle with some parts enlarged. The Harpy Eagle was important because I've seen a lot of of Native American Thunderbird imagery sporting a feather crown and Harpy Eagles have those.

Yes I did not some of the information you had in your alternative futures thread however I don't remember seeing information on the proteins of edible insects. Although I do have some prior understadning of insects being a high protein source of food for many animals.

I read the information on the Rockey Mountain Locust, and I'm trying to put together a few things. The locust thrived in more of dorught conditions or dry environments, with western agriculture and irrigations being blamed for their extinction there. However if they were a food source for ThunderBirds, that could have also played a large role in their demise. What kind of a calorie intake would birds of their size need?

It also appears the locust lived underground part times, during breeding and such, makes me wonder if their habitat was shared with their predators, Thunderbirds. hmmm I'm thinking more about that. Really should be looking more into the resources and environments of places like the Rockey Mountains. The locust would have been an easy food source without having to hunt to far from their habitat or open places.

And I once saw Mars' polar ice caps with a reflector telescope about twice that size.

So maybe just building your own 8-20 inch reflector and pointing it a suspected mountain peak a few miles away would be right for initial research. Put inside a house and the bird would never know it was there. Still I'm not sure it'd be good after dusk

I would need some serious help. Wanna come with ?
That actually sounds like a more realist idea doesn't it. Using a reflector.
How would you know what size you needed, for miles away....do you think you would have to be that far away?

Yes I though that picture was fake, however I like validation. I'm not that great at making up my mind sometimes lol

There are caves stretching over 11 miles in the Rockies....didn't know to that extent.

With the predominance of limestone in the Rockies, various caverns and caves have been eroded. Castleguard Cave is the most famous of these. It has been mapped for more than 17 km (11 miles) under the Columbia Icefields, making it the largest cave system in Canada.

The wall is approximately four feet deep and inside the cave is found a number of bighorn sheep and bear skulls. Also, as one explores the cave, very old bat skeletons can be found including one mummified skeleton near the first set of cave pearls.

http://www.mountainnature.com/geology/Caves.htm

I want to check out these caves... that would unreal.

Ugh lost what I wrote.
Okay since I lost most of the stuff its like this Big Birds of Prey eat less. About half their body weight every two days.
http://blogs.sandiegozoo.org/blog/2008/ ... py-eagles/
Compartively an our big bird is about 78kg which means about 40kg out Mammal ever two days or about 1 Mountain Goat or or 8 woodchucks or 20 Rabbits (see nutritional table: http://www.gunnersden.com/index.htm.hun ... value.html ) or 150000 Locusts (nutritional table http://www.ent.iastate.edu/Misc/insectnutrition.html & this http://www.hollowtop.com/finl_html/huntgathers.htm)
A thunderbird may eat even less than that because its is so much bigger than a harpy.

The image of Thunderbirds eating locusts reminds me of bait balls:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quwebVjA ... re=related

So the locusts must have been in the caves as well. Looks like locusts are primary vegetarians? Did you know Chameleons eat locusts.

And ok, now I see Aquatank, why you said Thunderbirds could have also fallen prey to the locust.

"For every million locusts, one ton of food is eaten."

"The largest known swarm covered 1,036 sq km (400 sq mi) and was made up of 40 billion insects."

http://en.mimi.hu/animals/locust.html

Yep I could totally imagine that being like bait balls, hey that was a cool video by the way. Awesome, never seen anything like it. And wait, now that I think about it, the article of locust you referenced in wikipedia concerning the Rocky Mountains suggested a much larger swarm:

"According to The Guinness Book of Records under the heading 'greatest concentration of animals', the swarm must have contained at least 12.5 trillion insects with a total weight of 27.5 million tons."

Isn't that fascinating, that would have been prime food if you ask me. And that was in the Rocky Mountain range

This article below:

California gulls are famous for reputedly aiding settlers in Salt Lake City, Utah, by eating the "locusts" (probably Mormon crickets, Anabrus simplex) that threatened their crops. California gulls benefit agriculturalists economically because they feed on the pests that destroy their crops, such as mice, and insects. Mouse holes often ruin crops, but as the fields are irrigated, mice are forced to come out of their holes and they are then eaten by the birds.

http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/information/Larus_californicus.html

You know, the sea gulls by native americans are called the white eagles. If they eat locusts, there is no question Thunderbirds would as well.

They also call the ThunderBird rain bird...here is an interesting fact I did not Know. However Aquatank has my mind 100 miles an hour into research every so often.

The Rain Bird in Native American legend was a bird who brought rain. A Rain Bird design is used in some Native American pottery. The name was borrowed by the Rain Bird Corporation to name their sprinkler.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rain_Bird_(legend)

Interesting to say the least- Now I'm looking up some things under rain bird as well.

Hmmm Sandra I may be wrong about the height altitude habitats. Found this:
http://www.unknown-creatures.com/thunderbirds.html
states most sightings are in Pennsylvania, I've been through Pennsylvania quite a bit in my life time, and while there is a lot of mountains they don't go above 3300ft. There aren't any Mountain goats What it does have quite a bit of White-tailed Deer, and in the right season that means lots of easy road kill to fly off with. I remember driving around in there one time and I spotted nearly 25-50 on a single long highway stretch on a single day. Over in my state a town not far from here had to authorize culling in town because of the deer population explosion. I can well imagine a large predator in PA. With the number of wild pigs going up in this country I think a big bird might well get its choice of pickings in that area.

Well thunderbirds could still be existing in habitats of a higher altitude elsewhere.
Like again, the rocky mountains, however sightings in that region are not as common. I'm sure there is not alot of traffic up in the higher altitudes of the mountains, with the rocky mountains having more than 54 summits above 14,000 feet.



hehe Thought that sign was cool.

Oh and thought this article was interesting.
Ancient runway dating more than 150 million years old found, used by
the pterosaurs.

http://cryptozoo-oscity.blogspot.com/2009/08/ancient-thunderbirds-needed-run-way.html

Scientists still do not know specifics of how they took off in flight.

Pennsylvania does seem to be the hot spot. With road kill, they would have easy landing, however they would be spotted even easier you would think.