lrb@hpcnof.UUCP (01/10/86)
Reprinted (without permission) from the Denver Post, last October or Nov.
FRIGATE BIRD 'DERANGED'
By Norm Udevitz, Denver Post Staff Writer
The giant frigate bird that strayed thousands of miles from its normal
tropical habitat to attack a windsurfer at a mountain reservoir last month
was "starving to death and deranged," a Denver bird expert said Friday.
The bird, which had a wingspan of about 8 feet, repeatedly dived at Jerry
Mullikin at Green Mountain Reservoir before being wounded by rock-throwing
onlookers and being put out of its misery by Mullikin.
The remains were turned over to Charles Chase, curator of ornithology at
the Denver Museum of Natural History.
Friday, after completing a necropsy, Chase said the bird was "actually
dying of hunger and just wasn't behaving normally."
He also said the bird had a brain hemotoma, possibly from one of the rocks
that hit it or from an old injury.
"But I'm quite sure the hemotoma doesn't explain the bird's behavior,"
Chase said, "It was hunger and low blood sugar."
"It acted much like a human dying of hunger. You know how it is when your
blood sugar is low. You do strange things. It was just deranged from lack
of food."
He said the bird probably was blown inland and that winds kept it coming
toward Colorado.
Mullikin was in the water waiting for the wind to pick up when he was first
attacked.
"I was laughing at first, and I ducked down into the water and swatted at
it, but it kept circling, Every 30 seconds it would attack."
The bird kept circling, swooping and snapping at Mullikin for about 20
minutes, then renewed its attacks when the Vail real estate agent reached
shore.