FOXSYLVANIA

–No, we’re not talking about Big Bird, that mellow yellow fellow with the endocrine problem universally endeared to children on Sesame Street. This is about cryptic birds big enough to carry away small children, as reportedly happened in Lawndale, Illinois in 1977.  At that time, a 4′ tall boy weighing 56 lbs. was reportedly carried 35 feet by an enormous black bird with a white ring around its neck.  The bird was said to have had a 4-1/2 foot body, and each wing of the bird exclusive of the body measured 4 feet.  The boy pounded at the bird and was eventually dropped after having been carried that 35′ distance; he was physically unharmed, but suffered psychological problems afterwards.  The bird came to be referred to as the Lawndale Thinderbird, after the enormous birds of Native American legend…