Vulture sighting!

[radiantfracture]

I am reading Emily Wilson's Odyssey translation for the BISR course that begins on Wednesday night.

I'm in Book III just now, when Telemachus is visiting the neighbours for news of his father and hears instead of the fates of Agamemnon and Meneleus. After an evening of talking, Telemachus and Mentes/Athena rise to leave. Nestor insists they stay the night. Athena refuses, making one of her dramatic exits:

bright-eyed Athena flew away, transformed
into an ossifrage.

Now, on further investigation, it seems like ossifrage can refer to several different birds, but the first hit I got was this:

The bearded vulture (Gypaetus barbatus), also known as the lammergeier and ossifrage, is a very large bird of prey in the monotypic genus Gypaetus. The bearded vulture is the only known vertebrate whose diet consists of 70–90% bone. (Wikipedia)

Hi amazing. Bone specialists! So metal.

The bearded vulture doesn't have a bald head, but it does have a fantastically acid stomach. And it's got an amazing kind of glam biker look.

§rf§

Comments

[elusis]

I feel like George Miller must have been looking at these guys when talking with the "Fury Road" costumer and makeup artists.

[radiantfracture]

YES. Same colourways.

[larryhammer]

I hadn't known ossifrage referred to anything but the bearded vulture. What else, I wonder?

[ioplokon]

Etymologically, any bird that can break your bones, right? So technically geese are ossifrageous...

[sovay]

I hadn't known ossifrage referred to anything but the bearded vulture. What else, I wonder?

I always think of it as the lammergeier! I must have encountered that word first.

[radiantfracture]

I never thought of them as anything before today. And now I know them under two extremely cool names. Bonebreaker, lamb-scavenger --sounds like a conjuring.

[sovay]

And now I know them under two extremely cool names. Bonebreaker, lamb-scavenger --sounds like a conjuring.

*cough* you should write an incantation *cough*

[radiantfracture]

I am so far from an expert on birds that I can hardly see them from here, but the Internet suggests that the osprey and also young sea eagles might sometimes be called ossifrage - by analogy, I wonder?

[larryhammer]

Ah -- I can understand osprey/sea eagles getting called that.

[thewayne]

Interesting!

[frandroid]

Haha amazing look. I'd get my bones picked by these atop a Tower of Silence.

[radiantfracture]

We'd be lucky to.

[sovay]

Hi amazing. Bone specialists! So metal.

70–90% bone diet is like the airborne version of the scaly-foot gastropod.

[radiantfracture]

They should form a band.

(Thank you for the reminder of this extremely cool living thing / biological smelter)

[sovay]

They should form a band.

*slams the buy button so fast*

[sabotabby]

I love her eyeliner.

[frandroid]

Haha I'm seeing this post again and it feels like you titled it "vulture signaling" :D

[radiantfracture]

well now I wish I had