Gyre

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The gyre is a huge feathered bird similar in appearance to the terrestrial condor. While its wingspan is 20 feet or even more, its body length is rarely over 6 feet. The upper surfaces of its body and wings are a rich green, while its underbelly and the undersides of its wings are a pale grey-blue. This coloration makes for excellent natural camouflage. When roosting in the treetops, wings folded, its green coloration blends in with the leaves around it; when soaring overhead, its grey-blue underside makes it difficult to see against the sky.
Gyres are perfectly evolved for the sky, and can remain aloft for tens of hours without landing.
==Combat==
Gyres prefer to attack by swooping down on their victims from above. Their eyesight is unmatched at picking out movement, although they are less capable of distinguishing targets that remain motionless. When they swoop on their prey, gyres can bite with their wickedly curved beak, or rake with their taloned feet; they are unable to use both attack forms simultaneously. If a gyre hits with both talon attacks, it is able to carry away any creature weighing less than 75 pounds. A victim so snatched automatically suffers maximum claw damage on each subsequent round, and the gyre is able to bite at it with a +4 bonus to hit. In addition, the gyre is able to drop the victim at any time, for potentially lethal falling damage.
A gyre has an innate ability to induce magical fear on any creature under 4 HD or levels that is beneath the bird as it flies. The maximum vertical range of this power is 500 feet. Creatures within this fear effect must save vs. spells or flee in terror from the gyre. (Note that this makes it difficult for prey to remain immobile, and hence unnoticed by the gyre.)
The arrangement of a gyre's feathers are such that it is almost silent in flight. Combined with its coloration, this gives the gyre a much greater chance to surprise its prey.
Gyres will rarely attack anything of size M or larger. If anything approaches within 500 feet of the gyre's treetop nest, however, the bird will attack to try and drive the interloper away. If there are young in the nest, the gyre will fight to the death to protect them.
==Habitat/Society==
Gyres live in large, untidy nests constructed in the tops of the tallest trees. They are normally solitary predators, but in the spring, they seek mates. Courtship displays, performed by the male, involve climbing to extreme altitudes then tipping over into steep, screaming glides, pulling out scant feet above the tops of the trees near where females are roosting.
After mating, the female lays one or two eggs. Fertility rates are low, however, so there is only a 50% chance that any given egg will hatch. Hatching occurs in high summer, and the parents cooperate in feeding the hatchlings. The parents teach the young to fly in late fall, at which time any encounter with gyre has a 75% chance probability of being with a family group (1 or 2 parents, with 1 or 2 young, 10- 80% mature). When the young reach full maturity, in late winter, the family group breaks up.
The gyre lives for approximately 15 years.
==Ecology==
Gyre are straightforward predators, preying on other birds and on animals that they can snatch out of the upper branches of the trees. When hunting, gyre use an interesting tactic for picking prey from lower down in the trees. They go into a shallow dive, then tuck their wings and draw in their long neck. Like blunt, feathered projectiles, they smash through the thin branches, snatch their prey, then wait until there's enough room for a wing beat or two to bring them back up out of the trees. Gyre hunting in this manner can be heard at great distances. (It doesn't always work, of course. Broken bodies of gyres found on the forest floor are mute testimony to the fact that the big birds sometimes just don't find the room to take those one or two wingbeats...)
Gyre are near the top of the food chain. The only creatures that prey upon them are the Bodi elves - who sometimes hunt them with longbows - and green dragons. Their natural camouflage gives the gyre some protection against both, of course.
Category:Creatures
Category:Practical Planetology Creatures