Gwiber-Wyvern by Tim Morris

"Gwiber or Welsh Flying Serpent by Pristichampsus (Tim Morris) on Deviant Art: It has been theorised that century old reports of feathered flying serpents in Wales may have been some sort of unusual bird, perhaps a pheasant. It makes sense, unlikely as it seems, the Quetzal bird was worshiped as a flying serpent by the Mayans, because it appears serpentine in flight. Like the Quetzal and the peacock, it is said to glitter and shine, with eyed wings and tail appearing like jewels. The birds were reported to raid chicken coops, either this is scapegoating, and the culprit was a fox. Alternately, some large birds, including pheasants, are very aggressive towards chickens (also, large birds invariably attack each other), and many kinds of domestic pheasant are cannibalistic.

"Thanks to Karl Shuker for introducing me to this Cryptid."
Thanks do go to Karl for pointing this creature out, since it is one of the featured creatures of From Flying Toads to Snakes With Wings. However the identification is mine as well as very nearly the same wording I used
I did say "Some domestic fowl can be cannibalistic" because actually this does include even chickens-allegedly some fighting cocks enjoy eating the losers in fights, and so on.
Darren Naish posted a reference to cannibalism in pheasants on Tet Zoo before:
http://scienceblogs.com/tetrapodzoology/2010/03/pheasant_cannibalism.php

English Water Jug 1100s

North German Water Jug, 1200s

Illuminated Boewulf Manuscript from the 1300s

I have done an article on this for the CFZ and it has been reprinted in Richard Muirhead's journal FLYING SERPENT. Essentially I was the one to come up with the complete theory on this, although someting of the same idea has been around for years. My idea was that the Gwiber was the same as the Wyvern and also the Cockatrice, and was a large pheasant-like bird with a long feathered tail. Traditionally, it was up to nine feet long. It was definitely a bird because it had feathered wings and only two legs with clawed and scaly feet. It also turns out that it is THE Traditional Western European Winged Dragon, and that all Western Winged Dragons were really birds, albeit very large and agressive birds that were rumoured to be venomous. I added photos showing that a pheasant with a very long tail could actually curl it around as if it were a snake's tail. Furthermore it was such a size that the hen of this pheasant was about the size and shape as the cock of a smaller species of pheasant, hence giving rise to those stories about a cock laying eggs.

A Wyvern.

Supporting this idea is the fact that the artistic depictions of dragons, Wyverns and Cockatrices are all pretty much similar, and even the dragons are often shown with bird beaks (and pretty much chicken-beak-shaped-beaks at that) And some types of pheasants do have feathered crests at the back of the head looking like horns or ears, so that part of the traditional descriptions match up also. The traditional descriptions did remain very closely similar from the 1100s up into the 1700s.

They are occasionally still being reported in parts of Wales and in other places.

dragon-art-lindworm-wappen-at-klagenfurt-gaertner

1420 Moors Subduing a Dragon

Winged Dragons Gesner 1589 and Spanish Flying Dragon 1560

Dragon skeleton reconstruction made in Rome in 1691. Not exactly accurate but it does illustrate what the overall shape was still supposed to be. The head looks as if it is a dog's skull.

Rafael, Renaissance Italy, St George and the Dragon.
Once again the traditional size and shape is approximated
And is about right for a large pheasant-like bird with a long tail

Cockatrice-Dragon 1628

The corresponding Russian tradition might be the Firebird and there could be a Western European green phase for the original bitd and an Eastern European red phase. Both bitds are represented as having peacock-like tail feathers marked with prominent ocelli (eyespots) the Lithuanian dragon also manifests as a sort of a large fowl with a tail made out of fire.

 The original posting was on  http://forteanzoology.blogspot.com/2011/01/dale-drinnon.html

Flying Stingrays Again

I had been criticised for saying that several winged monsters that had been reported as arising out of the water and "Flying" werre stingrays: such creatures include South America's Cuero or Manta, the Welsh Water-Leaper and Africa's Kongamato. One criticism I heard was that the big manta rays were known to leap out of the water, but the smaller stingrays were not known to do that.

Heere is a photograph of a stingray leaping out of the water to get out of the way from a predator. This has been circulating around the internet for a while but I got this copy at the site at this link:

http://lostintarnation.blogspot.com/2009/06/red-alert-flying-stingrays.html

And I also got another email from one of the "Pterodactyl" witnesses mentioned on this blog before, saying that a woman of his acquaintence saw a Pterodactl with a long thin whiplike tail, and she described it as looking like a stingray. The correspondant was still convinced she had seen a Pterodactyl, but I still think an ordinary stingray is still much more likely.

Best Wishes, Dale D.