It was almost the first bird seen in the Sierra Bermeja, where a superb adult passed slowly along our line, carrying what appeared to be a live snake in his claws, some four feet of writhing reptile dangling beneath. The Lammergeyer, by the way, like the eagle, carries everything in its claws, not in the beak. We were rather surprised at seeing this bird here, the local hunters having specially assured us that only "aguilas reales" bred in that sierra. This name, however, proved to be that here applied to the Lammergeyer; its proper recipient, the Golden Eagle (a pair of which were nesting in a crag not far off) being known as "aguila negra."
Vultures, it may be mentioned, were chiefly remarkable by their absence in these mountains—one only saw a solitary Griffon at long intervals, and in that barren rocky-mountain region (afterwards mentioned), in which we found the Lammergeyer most numerous, vultures were seldom seen. Yet Buiteras, "Griffonries," so to speak, existed at certain intervals, say, six or eight leagues apart, throughout the whole of those sierras.
This pair of Lammergeyers, which we enjoyed watching during some days, soon disclosed to us both the position of their present abode and also that of a former year, entering the latter crag almost as often as the then tenanted nursery.
Perched, as we were, a thousand feet above, it was a glorious ornithological spectacle to watch these grand birds sailing to and fro unsuspicious and unconscious of our presence, their lavender backs and outstretched pinions gleaming like silver in the sunshine. Slowly they would glide down the gorge till lost to sight around an angle; returning half an hour later, and passing beneath our post, would circle for a minute or two round the rock-stack. Not a motion of those rigid pinions till close to the mouth of the eyrie, then the great wings closed, and the bird disappeared within its cave.
Both eyries were situate in similar positions—in abrupt stacks of rock which protruded from the rugged mountain slope, but both quite low down, almost at the bottom of the 3,000-foot gorge across which the two nests faced each other. The Lammergeyer, we have now ascertained, does not breed, as we had expected, in those more stupendous precipices beloved of Aquila bonelli, and whose height dwarfs even an eagle to the similitude of the homely kestrel; but rather, either in rock-stacks such as those (often not 100 feet high) which flank the lower gargantas, or corries of the sierra, or in those generally loftier crags which often belt the base of each individual mountain.
The actual site of the nest is a small cave—rather than a crevice—and a huge mass of material, the accumulation of years, usually covers the whole floor. In one case, not less than a cart-load of sticks, branches, and twigs of cistus and heath had been collected, covering a circular space some six feet in diameter by two in depth. The present nest was hardly so large, and was completed with dead vine-branches, the prunings of the previous autumn;—and contained, besides an old alparagata, or hempen sandal, several cows' hoofs, and the dried leg and foot of a wild-goat. There was, however, no carrion about, nor any very offensive smell, such as would have characterized the home of a vulture.
To an outsider, the feat of scaling even a 100-foot crag, when fairly sheer, seems no easy undertaking; but our two mountain-bred lads made light work of it, one escalading the Lammergeyer's fortress from below, the other from above (which proved the easier way), and actually meeting in the eyrie. Some goatherds, hearing of our wish to secure a "quebranta-huesos," had removed the single young bird an hour or two previously. This grotesque and most uncouth fledgeling was then (at end of March) about the size of a turkey, covered with grey-white down, and with beak and crop so disproportionately heavy that a recumbent position appeared almost a necessity. The youngster kept up a constant querulous whistle when visited, and consumed, we were told, four pounds of meat daily. A month later the feathers were beginning to show through the down, and the daily consumption of meat had doubled.
In a remote region of the Sierra Nevada, during the spring of 1891, the writer visited several eyries of the Lammergeyer—each nest, in construction and situation, resembling those already described, but the season (April) was too late to secure eggs, this species breeding very early—in January. The young—usually only one, though two eggs are often laid—at this season were about one-third feathered. These nests were in the midst of a peculiarly barren and rocky district of the great Eastern Sierras, the precise locality of which it may be as well to leave unwritten. Two of the eyries were in low belts of protruding rock which broke the steep slope of the sierra, a third in a detached crag about 150 feet in height. The latter, however, was easily accessible (by rope) from above. The Lammergeyer, when breeding, is less cautious than eagle or vulture, sitting close, even while preparations for an assault on its stronghold are being made close at hand.
The adults measure from 8 feet 6 inches to 9 feet in expanse of wing, and the wedge-shaped white head with its bristly beard and scarlet eyelids, its cat-like irides, and the black bands that pass through the eye, give the bird a peculiarly ferocious aspect. When on the wing, as Prince Rudolph remarks, these features, together with the long rigid wings, cuneate tail, and the mixture of hoary grey, black, and bright yellow in its plumage, distinguish the Gypaëtus at a glance from any other living creature, and lend it a strange, almost a dragon-like appearance.
Its claws, though less acutely hooked than those of the eagle, are sharp and powerful weapons—quite different to the worn and blunted claws of vultures, though the central toe in both is much longer than the two outside ones.