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The Egyptian Vulture

© Copyright 1998, Jim Loy

is the first letter of the Egyptian alphabet. It is roughly pronounced "ah." The bird we see there is the Egyptian vulture. It may look more like an eagle, than a vulture. But, if you've ever seen an Egyptian vulture, that is how they look. The Egyptian vulture is a tool-using bird. It breaks eggs by dropping rocks on them. It finds an egg that it wants to eat, and then picks up a rock in its beak, stretches to its greatest height, and drops the rock. The rock seldom hits the egg. In fact, the bird doesn't seem to be able to aim the rock at all, often dropping it nowhere near the egg. But, it keeps this up until it breaks the egg. Then it feasts on the oozing interior of the egg. Yum.

The woodpecker finch, of the Galapagos Islands, is the only other tool-using bird that I know of. It uses a cactus spine (or twig), suitably trimmed to the right dimensions, to dig caterpillars out of holes in trees.

Note: Of course, "tool-using" depends on your definition of "tool." A blue bower bird, that uses a piece of blue string to attract a mate, may be using a tool. A reader (Stephen Mendenhall) of this page read an account of a seagull using a car to break a shell. The seagull actually berated the driver for missing the shell, which the driver then backed over.

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