Heh, perhaps the fella got tired of the wind (it's a relatively open area after all).

Or mayhap a new way to entice people to ask questions, and thus give a window of opportunity to reel them in for the services of A.M.A.N., oo-ho-ho~ (or alternatively, keep the pesky adventurers off).

One can only guess, but here is a picture from somewhere around 2006: