Elephant bird determined that "Vorombe titan" reached weights of and stood tall, making it the world's largest bird, slightly larger than the much older "Dromornis stirtoni". Elephant birds have been extinct since at least the 17th century. Étienne de Flacourt, a French governor of Madagascar in the 1640s and 1650s, mentions an ostrich-like bird said to inhabit unpopulated regions, though it is unclear whether he was repeating folk tales passed on from generations earlier. In 1659, Flacourt wrote of the "vouropatra – a large bird which haunts the Ampatres and lays eggs like the ostriches; so that the people of these places
Caroline Bird have been published in several anthologies and journals including "Poetry Magazine", "PN Review", "Poetry Review" and "The North" magazine. Her poems and a commissioned short story, "Sucking Eggs", have been broadcast on BBC Radio 4. A member of the Royal Court Young Writers Programme, Bird is also a playwright. She was part of the Bush Theatre's 2011 project "Sixty-Six Books", for which she wrote a piece based on a book of the "King James Bible" In February 2012, Bird presented her "Beano"-inspired show "The Trial of Dennis the Menace", featuring original music by Matt Rogers, which was performed in the