Cinnamon Bird

The cinnamon bird is a large, fearsome, and remarkable creature, named so because of its unique relationship with cinnamon trees. It is a large, colorful bird with bright red, orange and brown plumage. The males have a crest of bright yellow feathers atop their head. They have powerful leg muscles and a sharp beak, both of which help the bird tear apart tree branches and prey alike. It preys on medium to large mammals, anything from a cat to a deer. If the prey is sufficiently large, the cinnamon bird will tear off its limbs and carry them back to its nest, leaving the rest of the carcass on the ground.   Much to the dismay of cinnamon farmers the world over, the fearsome cinnamon bird makes its nests exclusively from the branches of cinnamon trees. It tears the branches from the trees, leaving them rather weak and bare, and uses them to form its nests on cliffs and other safe and elevated locations. Unable to properly guard their groves against the beasts, cinnamon plantation owners often hire enterprising laborers to do the dangerous work of recovering the branches from the bird's nest. These adventurous workers employ a number of tricks, such as leaden arrows or large weighted nets to pull down the nests and recover the branches while the cinnamon bird is away. If the cinnamon bird catches them, it will kill them to a man if they cannot drive it away.   Another strange attribute of the cinnamon bird is its shockingly shiny and reflective downy feathers. Scholars believe that these feathers are used in some yet to be observed mating ritual. What is certainly known however, is that they make the bird remarkably resistant to certain forms of magic. As such, many prize these shimmering soft feathers for charms and the lining of pillows as it is believed that the feathers ward off curses.