More great input from Steve Mann, he showed me how he'd rig the beak and talked about correcting the edgeloops around the mouth and wings. Also about using only what you need geometery wise.

And THIS off of Jonhandhisdog where someone asked the magic question:

How do you rig a Long Neck? (bless this person). And who should answer?
Stephen Mann - I'm asuming it's the same Mr. Mann. So THANKS for this rigging advice!!!!!

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from my experience I create a stretchy spine similar to that of JS or SuperToon series.

number of controls depends on length of neck

4 -5 prob the most youll ever have. just make sure you can straighten the neck , as well as put it into most of the positions you need.

for the head, I find that putting the contro at the basal scull connection is the best point to place the pivot.

then orient constraint a group above that head control to "world" and to "local" local gets grouped under the neck chain, and world gets grouped under the TOP node of the character. ( placement node)

then just blend betwixt the two for local space and world space ( i genereally find I'll set it for a paticular animation, but dont do too much switching in mid animation)

hope that helps.

-=s