Greenland – Great Auk
Greenland is as big an island as they go being the biggest one that isn’t a continent. It’s an autonomous country within the kingdom of Denmark. Despite the impressive size of the island around 80% of its surface area is covered by a great ice sheet which means that settlement has taken place around the fringes of the island, and it is from one of these little settlements that the report of today’s cryptid comes.
Officially the Great Auk became extinct in 1844 when the last known birds met a grisly end on a small island off the coast of Iceland. However, extinct or not, that didn’t stop further sightings being reported, in 1888 four birds were seen standing on a rock in a little group of islands to the south of Disko Island called Kronprinsens Ejlande. But there has been one further sighting of more recent date which took place in the 1920s and which resulted in the bird not only being caught but being served up for tea.
Next stop Iceland.
Greenland is as big an island as they go being the biggest one that isn’t a continent. It’s an autonomous country within the kingdom of Denmark. Despite the impressive size of the island around 80% of its surface area is covered by a great ice sheet which means that settlement has taken place around the fringes of the island, and it is from one of these little settlements that the report of today’s cryptid comes.
Officially the Great Auk became extinct in 1844 when the last known birds met a grisly end on a small island off the coast of Iceland. However, extinct or not, that didn’t stop further sightings being reported, in 1888 four birds were seen standing on a rock in a little group of islands to the south of Disko Island called Kronprinsens Ejlande. But there has been one further sighting of more recent date which took place in the 1920s and which resulted in the bird not only being caught but being served up for tea.
Next stop Iceland.
No comments:
Post a Comment