The Spectacular Californian Condor

The California condor is a spectacular bird, and it may be truly said of him

, "Once seen, never forgotten." His head and neck are quite devoid of feathers, but the skin is colored a dozen different hues, as though Nature had experimented with all her cosmetics in order to give the bird's complexion the hues of a rainbow. The head itself is a brilliant orange, with a subtle play of lighter yellow and darker fire-color. The throat changes from orange to a beautiful lavender, which in turn becomes jade green on the sides and nape of the neck. At the base of the neck above the gullet is a huge diamond-shaped vermilion patch, which seems to swell and diminish alternately as the bird moves the muscles of its supple neck. This vermilion patch is the more set off by the ruff of stiff black feathers which come up around the base of the bird's throat like the ostrich feather boas which are sometimes so effective on pretty maidens. Perhaps the bird knows that they are attractive, for he sometimes makes them bristle out to their full width by flexing the skin beneath. The rest of his feathers are jet black, with the exception of a few that line the under side of the wing near the body and in front, which are of a pure and brilliant whiteness. The bird looks truly tremendous in size with the wings spread and these startling patches of white revealed. The feet are gray and scaly, with the flat toes of a turkey, telling us that the condor is not a bird of prey like the eagle, which needs long bent claws to seize living animals for food. The bird's bill is high and prominent, though not very wide. It is very strong, however, and is used effectively when the bird tears his food into mouthfuls at feeding time. The condor eats only carrion. He stands on top of the meat, seizes an end of it with his bill, straightens his legs and neck, and then pulls with all his might, and the piece of meat usually vanishes down his throat as soon as it is torn away from the remaining chunk. Towards the visitors at Washington zoo, the condor is more than generous in his hospitable desire to share what he himself enjoys. More than once, as I approached his cage in mid-afternoon when the feeding had been done, the condor would seize the remnants of his feast- perhaps the skin and dangling legs of a dead rabbit-and trot up to the wire netting as near to me as he could get, and lay down his offering on the ground by the wire, as if to welcome me to share his little all. Should I not appreciate his motive, even though I must decline his offering?

The Spectacular Californian Condor

By: David Bunch

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