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Description
50 million years ago during the early Eocene epoch of what is now the London Clay Formation on the Isle of Sheppey, UK, a pair of Gastornis parisiensis, large flightless birds standing almost 2 meters tall, decide to temporarily leave their forest home and walk out onto a nearby beach on the edge of the forest just because. It turns out they chose a bad spot to rest on the sand though when a huge and kinda clumsy seabird suddenly crashes right into one of them. Dasornis emuinus is a massive pelagornithid seabird with a wingspan of over 5 meters that allows it to spend much of its life gliding over the ocean on warm air currents, but their need to nest and lay eggs means that during the mating season they gather at certain beaches to reproduce. Here, it is still the beginning of the breeding season and this male Dasornis is the first to arrive. While a graceful and elegant flier, the huge seabird finds landing a bit difficult and in an attempt to do so it accidentally strikes a smaller seabird called Prophaethon shrubsolei with its left wing, leading to it suddenly losing control of its flight and them descending unexpectedly. In doing so its right one hits one of the Gastornis in the face. This pelagornithid is lucky he's the first to arrive at the beach and didn't embarrass himself in front of potential mates. Inspired mainly by this photo of a Laysan albatross crash-landing (www.guernseyphotoclub.org.gg/p… ).

Another drawing for Prehistoric Flyers Week (mobile.twitter.com/EDGEinthewi… ). While birds first evolved in the Jurassic period and were already quite diverse in the Cretaceous period, they were still mostly smaller forms at that time, with pterosaurs taking the main large aerial niches. This all changed after the K-Pg mass extinction event at the end of the Cretaceous period though, when a huge asteroid crashed into the earth and wiped out all pterosaurs and non-avian dinosaurs. Without pterosaurs around, birds quickly diversified during the Cenozoic era to fill all sorts of aerial niches and still do today.

The Odontopterygiformes is an extinct order of birds that only contained one family, the Pelagornothidae. Pelagornithids were seabirds with long wings that lived similarly to modern albatrosses, gliding over the oceans and eating fish and squid. Their beaks had sharp serrated edges that resemble teeth, gaining them the alternative name of the "pseudo-toothed birds" or "bony-toothed birds". The pseudotooth birds first evolved during the Paleocene, just 4 million years after the pterosaurs were wiped out, and by the early Eocene (less than ten million years after the K-Pg mass extinction) some huge species with wingspans of over 5 meters had already evolved. This was comparable to large sea-going pterosaurs like Pteranodon, but still much smaller than the giant azhdarchid pterosaurs with wingspans over 10 meters. The largest pelagornithid, Pelagornis sandersi of the Oligocene, had a 7-meter wingspan and may be the largest flying bird ever. Living in the early Eocene, Dasornis was one of the first giant flying birds, and this pelagornithid had a wingspan of five to six meters. Its remains are known from the London Clay Formation of England, though scrappy remains from other parts of the world like Belgium, Africa and even Antarctica may have also been from this genus.

A huge extinct flightless bird standing up to 2 meters tall, Gastornis was quite a widespread genus of birds with possibly up to 7 species living in Europe, China and North America during the Paleocene and Eocene. The type species G. parisiensis was first found in France near Paris (duh) but has since been found elsewhere in Europe. While it may physically appear similar to the phorusrhacids (commonly called the terror birds), Gastornis was not related to them, instead being the only known genus of the Gastornithidae family which was more closely related to waterfowl like ducks, geese and swans. With a big strong beak and large size, this bird was originally believed to be a predator similar to the phorusrhacids, ambushing small to medium-sized mammals and killing them bu crushing their bones with its beak (in particular it was very popular to portray it hunting early horses). More recent studies however have disproved this, with isotope analyses revealing the animal was a herbivore and its huge beak may have cracked nuts and ripped thick-skinned fruit instead like a massive parrot. The planet was much warmer in the Paleocene and Eocene than it is now even with our carbon emissions, and back then tropical forests would have extended as far north as Europe, giving the giant doom duck lush jungle habitat, much of it coastal since Europe was still an island cluster within the Tethys Sea back then so it could also have wandered onto the beach like cassowaries do today. I based the color scheme of my reconstruction loosely on the Gastornis from Walking With Beasts but modified it to be flashier since tropical birds then to be brightly-colored and its sheer size meant Gastornis would have few to no predators so it needed camouflage less.

Described in 1899 from remains found in the London Clay Formation, Prophaethon was a small extinct seabird of the Phaetoniformes order, which contains the tropicbirds. It probably lived a similar lifestyle to modern tropicbirds and since no one cares enough to do more research on this obscure animal I don't have much information to tell about it. First Prophaethon on DA though (despite the critter being known for centuries).

Description
50 million years ago during the early Eocene epoch of what is now the London Clay Formation on the Isle of Sheppey, UK, a pair of Gastornis parisiensis, large flightless birds standing almost 2 meters tall, decide to temporarily leave their forest home and walk out onto a nearby beach on the edge of the forest just because. It turns out they chose a bad spot to rest on the sand though when a huge and kinda clumsy seabird suddenly crashes right into one of them. Dasornis emuinus is a massive pelagornithid seabird with a wingspan of over 5 meters that allows it to spend much of its life gliding over the ocean on warm air currents, but their need to nest and lay eggs means that during the mating season they gather at certain beaches to reproduce. Here, it is still the beginning of the breeding season and this male Dasornis is the first to arrive. While a graceful and elegant flier, the huge seabird finds landing a bit difficult and in an attempt to do so it accidentally strikes a smaller seabird called Prophaethon shrubsolei with its left wing, leading to it suddenly losing control of its flight and them descending unexpectedly. In doing so its right one hits one of the Gastornis in the face. This pelagornithid is lucky he's the first to arrive at the beach and didn't embarrass himself in front of potential mates. Inspired mainly by this photo of a Laysan albatross crash-landing (www.guernseyphotoclub.org.gg/p… ).

Another drawing for Prehistoric Flyers Week (mobile.twitter.com/EDGEinthewi… ). While birds first evolved in the Jurassic period and were already quite diverse in the Cretaceous period, they were still mostly smaller forms at that time, with pterosaurs taking the main large aerial niches. This all changed after the K-Pg mass extinction event at the end of the Cretaceous period though, when a huge asteroid crashed into the earth and wiped out all pterosaurs and non-avian dinosaurs. Without pterosaurs around, birds quickly diversified during the Cenozoic era to fill all sorts of aerial niches and still do today.

The Odontopterygiformes is an extinct order of birds that only contained one family, the Pelagornothidae. Pelagornithids were seabirds with long wings that lived similarly to modern albatrosses, gliding over the oceans and eating fish and squid. Their beaks had sharp serrated edges that resemble teeth, gaining them the alternative name of the "pseudo-toothed birds" or "bony-toothed birds". The pseudotooth birds first evolved during the Paleocene, just 4 million years after the pterosaurs were wiped out, and by the early Eocene (less than ten million years after the K-Pg mass extinction) some huge species with wingspans of over 5 meters had already evolved. This was comparable to large sea-going pterosaurs like Pteranodon, but still much smaller than the giant azhdarchid pterosaurs with wingspans over 10 meters. The largest pelagornithid, Pelagornis sandersi of the Oligocene, had a 7-meter wingspan and may be the largest flying bird ever. Living in the early Eocene, Dasornis was one of the first giant flying birds, and this pelagornithid had a wingspan of five to six meters. Its remains are known from the London Clay Formation of England, though scrappy remains from other parts of the world like Belgium, Africa and even Antarctica may have also been from this genus.

A huge extinct flightless bird standing up to 2 meters tall, Gastornis was quite a widespread genus of birds with possibly up to 7 species living in Europe, China and North America during the Paleocene and Eocene. The type species G. parisiensis was first found in France near Paris (duh) but has since been found elsewhere in Europe. While it may physically appear similar to the phorusrhacids (commonly called the terror birds), Gastornis was not related to them, instead being the only known genus of the Gastornithidae family which was more closely related to waterfowl like ducks, geese and swans. With a big strong beak and large size, this bird was originally believed to be a predator similar to the phorusrhacids, ambushing small to medium-sized mammals and killing them bu crushing their bones with its beak (in particular it was very popular to portray it hunting early horses). More recent studies however have disproved this, with isotope analyses revealing the animal was a herbivore and its huge beak may have cracked nuts and ripped thick-skinned fruit instead like a massive parrot. The planet was much warmer in the Paleocene and Eocene than it is now even with our carbon emissions, and back then tropical forests would have extended as far north as Europe, giving the giant doom duck lush jungle habitat, much of it coastal since Europe was still an island cluster within the Tethys Sea back then so it could also have wandered onto the beach like cassowaries do today. I based the color scheme of my reconstruction loosely on the Gastornis from Walking With Beasts but modified it to be flashier since tropical birds then to be brightly-colored and its sheer size meant Gastornis would have few to no predators so it needed camouflage less.

Described in 1899 from remains found in the London Clay Formation, Prophaethon was a small extinct seabird of the Phaetoniformes order, which contains the tropicbirds. It probably lived a similar lifestyle to modern tropicbirds and since no one cares enough to do more research on this obscure animal I don't have much information to tell about it. First Prophaethon on DA though (despite the critter being known for centuries).