Image from the Biodiversity Heritage Library.
Contributed by Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, University of California, Berkeley.
| www.biodiversitylibrary.org
Transcription
Where the condor dragged the body of this calf that died
at birth. Tall grasses and a road bed made this tracking
possible—many feathers, both condor and buzzard were
piled up at this site, (See specimen No.5).
At 10:20 A.M. on August 11, 1963, Mrs. Farnsworth
[illegible] that in the process of inspecting her cows, that are
now calving, she came upon one condor and 10 plus
buzzards gathered about the carcass of a dead calf
that she had seen and recorded as a death loss earlier
in the morning. One hour later she returned and came
upon four adult condor feeding on the carcass of
this calf that had been dropped from the cow, Near a
large rock about 100 yards above the road and ¼
mile south of the Rock Corral. As she drove up on these
condor they were forced to come downhill to get into
the air and in the process passed by within 50 feet
of Mrs. Farnsworth. These four condor had dragged the
remains of this calf from the large rock above, down,
and into the roadway. In doing this a distance of
one-hundred-yards was covered, downhill, and over
a five foot bank on the uphill side of the road, and it
was in the [illegible] of this bank when Mrs. Farnsworth
arrived on the scene. Later in the evening of the same
day Mrs. Farnsworth again saw four adult condor
picking the remains of this calf carcass that by then
had been lifted up over a 30 inch bank on the
downhill side of the roadway and dragged through
large rocks and lodged between two large rocks
that were located about 10 feet from the bottom of
the canyon that runs parallel to, and below, the road.
Mrs. Farnsworth found four condor roosting in
a large oak, on a ridge to the west, and directly above
where the above calf body, its remains, were left.