[tn-bird] Fw: [birdky] Big Bird

Sent: Monday, October 21, 2002 7:42 AM
Subject: [birdky] Big Bird



 Bird the size of a plane spotted in Alaska USA: October 21, 2002
ANCHORAGE, Alaska - A bird the size of a small airplane was recently
 spotted flying over southwest Alaska, puzzling scientists, the Anchorage
 Daily News reported.
The newspaper quoted residents in the villages of Togiak and Manokotak
as saying the creature, like something out of the movie "Jurassic Park," had
a wingspan of 14 feet (4.6 metres) - making it the size of a small
airplane.
"At first I thought it was one of those old-time Otter planes," the paper
quoted
Moses Coupchiak, 43, a heavy equipment operator from Togiak, as saying.
"Instead of continuing toward me, it banked to the left, and that's when I
noticed
it wasn't a plane."
The Daily News, the largest daily in Alaska, said scientists had no doubt
that
people in the region, west of Dillingham, had seen the winged  creature but
they were skeptical about its reported size. "I'm certainly not aware of
anything
with a 14-foot wingspan that's been  alive for the last 100,000 years,"
the paper quoted raptor specialist  Phil Schemf as saying.
Coupchiak said the bird disappeared over the hill and he then radioed
Togiak
residents to tell them to keep their children in.
Another local resident, a pilot who had initially dismissed the reports,
said he
recently saw the bird from a distance of just 1,000 feet metres) while
flying his
airplane.
"The people in the plane saw him," John Bouker was quoted as saying.  "He's
huge, he's huge, he's really, really big. You wouldn't want to have your
children out."
Schemf and Rob Macdonald of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said  there
had
been several sightings over the past year and a half of a Steller's eagle,
a fish-eating bird that can weigh 20 pounds (10 kg) and  have a wingspan of
eight feet (2.60 metres), the newspaper reported.
 REUTERS NEWS SERVICE

I got this from the Kentucky Bird Line.  Any comments?
Jesse Livingston, Troy TN

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