Across the continent, traditional healers are increasingly using the body parts of vultures, creating an illegal market that has experts alarmed. Last year, at dawn on March 26, an exhausted Mohamed Henriques slid into his airplane seat. He had just managed to make it onto the last flight that left Guinea-Bissau before the small West […]
Tag: Rüppell’s Vulture
Up to 100 vulture deaths prevented by rapid response to poisoning
On the morning of the 27th of January, Eric Ole Reson was on his routine patrol on the Northern border of the Masai Mara when he spotted a group of vultures struggling to fly. Concerned, he hurried towards them, and stumbled across a tragic scene: 20 vultures lay dead around a hyena carcass, all of […]
African vulture pilot study aims to reduce poisoning deaths
Saving Africa’s Vultures, a new project to tackle the continent’s escalating vulture crisis, is now up and running, with three initial, targeted pilot schemes in Botswana, Kenya and Zimbabwe that aim to find out more about – and significantly reduce – the greatest threat facing African vultures: poisoning. Eleven species of vulture occur in Africa, […]
Pick on someone your own size!
Whilst on a short Safari recently in Samburu National Reserve, Kenya with Nature’s Wonderland Safaris, we came across a watering pool with White-headed and Rüppell’s Vultures along with Steppe Eagles. There was a mound that was a good vantage point for one of the Steppe Eagles. However a Rüppell’s Vulture had other ideas and thought […]
Melanistic Montagu’s Harrier and other Raptors
Here are some of the raptor photos we managed to see with my Swiss group from Arcatour last week. The wind direction swung around to give us moderate to strong Levante (easterlies) for five days and only died down on our last two days. Still, knowing what the migrating raptors do and where they will […]
Rüppell’s Vulture Sightings in Europe
After watching a huge flock of Griffon Vultures circling over the evergreen cork-oak canopy of the vast Alcornocales Parque Natural we eventually saw many birds descend down to the ground and out of sight. We could hear their hissing and squabbling and immediately knew that the birds were feeding at an animal carcass of some […]
A Kettle of Vultures in a Poisonous Mix
Increasingly today, East Africa is one of the few places one is likely to have the visceral experience of witnessing vultures crowded over newly found carrion, competing to quickly and efficiently render it to a few large bones and fur. Sadly it is precisely this astonishing ability to fly with ease across seasons and countries, […]
Thermals and more…
Migration: Black Kites are the first raptor to migrate and cross The Strait of Gibraltar. The skies will continue to be filled with them slowly moving down towards Tarifa and if the wind is too strong for them to cross to Morocco there will be a huge build up as more and more arrive in […]