This is a report shared here directly and it reminds me that many such reports are lost simply because there is no one to share it with. This is obviously a huge raptor. The speckled head may even make it a juvenile not yet fully grown. That may explain why it is resting in a ditch beside a roadway perhaps eating carrion.
The creature exists. A similarly sized raptor was seen by myself as a teenager close hunting over our grain field at a known measured distance of about three hundred yards. It plumage was grey to white even and the only thing close in the guide books were marsh hawks. Today i am sure that it is nothing we know about simply because it had a huge wingspan that was at least four feet if not larger. The only thing that comes close is a gyrfalcon in its white plumage at half the size.
Large four foot tall raptors exist and much larger Thunder Birds also exist. They are fed by an unlimited supply of jack rabbits and deer for which they are engineered to hunt. Been nocturnal hunters they are rarely seen and they nest in the base of large evergreens nicely skirted from view.
By the way i do welcome eye witness reports on these huge birds. They are once in a lifetime experiences.
Howard Batchelor has left a new comment on your post "Recent Thunderbird Sighting":
Sighting approx. 2004
Hi. I've been searching for sightings of a bird that is similar to what I saw one day in Northern Alberta, Canada.
I was driving to High Level, Alberta and caught what I assumed, in my peripheral, was a large black dog sitting very upright in the ditch along a fence-line. I did a double take, as it stuck me as odd due to how far away from it's home it must be (about 3 miles on either side to the nearest home along the highway). My mind will never forget what I saw; standing there was a dark bird (mostly black) reaching a full 4 feet to the top of it's head. The silouette was of similar shape to a dog with it's ears laid back sniffing the air slightly. I am guessing it's weight to be 150 pounds or more.
The beak was dark grey if not black irodescent. The feathers on its head and mane were grey speckled almost like a young bald eagles would be.
If i had to hazard a guess, it's beak would have had to be 6 to 8 inches long and seemed hooked sharply at the tip more pronounced than an eagle's. So all in all, the head was at least as large as a big wolf's from crown to beak-tip.
For 15 years it has remained in my memory very clearly, and I haven't told many about it, maybe a handful of people including the chief of the Kanienkehaka (Mohawk) of New York and an elder of the Saddle Lake nation (Cree).
If anyone has had a similar sighting I would love to hear about it.
howage1@gmail.com
24 April 2016
Howard Batchelor
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