This is bird note.

With the arrival of winter weather, we extend a helping hand to birds by filling up our feeders and bird baths.

But, looking back in time, there were some birds we would have been less eager to invite into our yards.

One such bird was Titanus Wallerai, which made its home in Florida just a few million years ago.

Titanus, as its name suggests, was Titanic indeed, a flightless predator, five feet tall. They were swift hunters that could chase down fast-moving mammals, then tear them apart with a massive hooked bill.

They likely preyed on animals as large as deer.

Titanus and other birds related to it, a group some paleontologists call the terror birds,

were dominant land predators in South America for tens of millions of years.

Paleontologists still aren't clear about why Titanus and its kin went extinct.

But whatever factors ended the era of the terror birds also made it a lot less risky

to go out and fill your bird feeder.

For birds. also made it a lot less risky to go out and fill your bird feeder. For Bird Note, I'm Michael Stein.