Elbert, here is some research I've done on the Ossifrage.
Also called, "Lammergeier": lam�mer�gey�er NOUN: A large predatory bird (Gypaetus barbatus) of the vulture family, ranging from the mountainous regions of southern Europe to China and having a wide wingspan and black plumage. Also called bearded vulture, ossifrage.

lammergeier's signature behavior: breaking bones and hard shelled turtles by dropping them on rocks from high in the air.
The crack of the bone is audible from some distance away. Immediately, the lammergeier turns into the wind, spiraling down towards the scattered bone fragments, alighting within a few seconds of the crack. In this way, the lammergeier forestalls other scavengers from robbing the fragments. It will repeat the process up to three times, often having to fly for several miles to gain height for another gliding approach.

Although dropping bones is a regular habit, the lammergeier also obtains food by other means. The bird has been known to lift and carry such live prey as a two foot monitor lizard. For the most part, however, the Lammergeier is a bird of unashamed cowardice, ready to take advantage of any animal in distress, incapable of defending itself against a creature half its own size and frightened at the wink of an eyelid. There is, however, nothing uncouth about a lammergeier. It is sinister, yet magnificent and dignified.

Ossifrage - Heb. peres = to "break" or "crush", the lammer-geier, or bearded vulture, the largest of the whole vulture tribe. It was an unclean bird (Lev. 11:13; Deut. 14:12). It is not a gregarious bird, and is found but rarely in Palestine. "When the other vultures have picked the flesh off any animal, he comes in at the end of the feast, and swallows the bones, or breaks them, and swallows the pieces if he cannot otherwise extract the marrow. The bones he cracks [hence the appropriateness of the name ossifrage, i.e., "bone-breaker"] by letting them fall on a rock from a great height. He does not, however, confine himself to these delicacies, but whenever he has an opportunity will devour lambs, kids, or hares. These he generally obtains by pushing them over cliffs, when he has watched his opportunity; and he has been known to attack men while climbing rocks, and dash them against the bottom. But tortoises and serpents are his ordinary food...No doubt it was a lammer-geier that mistook the bald head of the poet AEschylus for a stone, and dropped on it the tortoise which killed him" (Tristram's Nat. Hist.).

Got a pic.

MR

[This message has been edited by Mosquitorose (edited 11-26-2001).]

[This message has been edited by Mosquitorose (edited 11-26-2001).]

Love is a many splendid thing and food runs a close second.