Just a reminder:the natural diet of these birds is BONES. Not just bone marrow; actual bone shards. They pick up huge freaking bones from carcasses and drop them onto rocks until they get spiky pieces and then they swallow them. Their stomach acid dissolves bone.
look me in the eye and tell me that’s not a fucking dragon
And they aren’t naturally red like that. That’s self-applied makeup. They find the reddest earth they can to work into their feathers as a status symbol.
And they don’t scavenge other parts of carcases, just the bones. 85-90% of their diet is exclusively bone. Hence why it’s only a myth that these birds would just pick up whole lambs and carry them off. It’s not true, but in German they’re still called Lämmergeier as a result.
So metal