The Bird Way: A New Look at How Birds Talk, Work, Play, Parent, and Think

by Jennifer Ackerman

Some birds get at food enclosed in hard shells or other tough packaging by dropping it on pavement to crack it open. Gulls drop clams, and crows and ravens drop nuts. Perhaps most notable is the lammergeier, or bearded vulture, a carrion-eating bird like the turkey vulture, but one that feasts on bones rather than flesh. Small bones it swallows whole; large femurs and ulnas it takes to the sky, letting them go from hundreds of feet over rocky outcrops to split them open and release the marrow. It has its favorite spots for bone breaking, known as ossuaries. This huge and lovely bird is thought to be the one that killed Aeschylus when it dropped a tortoise on the Greek playwright, mistaking his bald head for a stone.