Ok, this is the third and final bird variant of the elephant bird skeleton that I’m going to do. I want to make some more progress in the “Designing Creatures & Characters” book I’ve been studying. It’s my least favorite of the three. Which do you like better? Share your thoughts in the comments.

As a little writing exercise let me describe these three birds.

Description

The birds of Helios Four are the only predators on the Isle of Harrows some 75 kilometers off the coast of the continent of Farspun. The birds are all flightless, however there is little need for flight when there is so much prey available on the isle. Dubbed the giant killer bird, the largest of the Helios’s predators is around 10 meters tall. The giant killer birds are the most colorful with black and yellow tufts of feathers atop the heads of males with mottled red wattles on their necks. They can inflate their waddles to attract the attention of a mate. The female of the species is usually drab by comparison to the bright azure feathers of the male. These azure giants mostly hunt the hairless bovine that roam the plains on the isle. The giant killer birds nest near rocky outcroppings that dot the plains and have clutches of one or two eggs.

The turquoise elephant bird lives on the forest floor and is an omnivore. It uses its prehensile trunk to pull leaves from high branches. At 8 meters tall it towers over its prey, the large termites (8cm long) that infest the forest floor. The female of the species looks exactly like the male, except they are usually larger than the males. They usually nest near fallen trees with clutches of three to five eggs.

In the moist caves of the Isle of Harrows lives the poisonous tiktik. It has developed an adaptation that prevents the larger giant killer bird from predating on them. It gathers the spores of various mushrooms and lines its down feathers with them. The spores grow into highly toxic mushrooms, but because of its robust immune system the Tiktik bird has developed an immunity to the toxins. The only loss to the birds are a few feathers. At only 3 meters tall it is the smallest of the island’s birds. No one has seen the female of the species, some even speculate that the tiktik bird reproduces asexually. Others believe the females live deep underground and that’s why there hasn’t been a comfirmed sighting in decades. The tiktik is highly territorial and will attack any creature that nears its nesting grounds. The Tiktik is an obligate carnivore and will eat anything that moves, even other tiktik birds.

What do you think? Can you picture them in your mind.