Bearded Vulture

Name

Bearded Vulture (Gypaetus barbatus)

Appearance

Bearded vultures weigh in at around 6 kgs, with a wingspan of 2.6 metres. They have “beard” feathers and a distinctive black face mask, they have baggy leggings. The eyes are yellow with a red eye ring. Adults are mostly grey in colour, with orange or rusty red markings. In flight, this vulture is characterised by its long wedge-shaped tail and its long narrow wings. This vulture is not bald headed like many other vulture species.

Bearded Vulture Diet

The bearded vulture is a scavenger, eating predominantly bone and bone marrow, which makes up around 85 to 90 % of its diet. It is the only living bird species that specializes in feeding on marrow. Bones that are too large to swallow are carried up to height and dropped onto rocks to break the bones.

The bearded vulture will hunt live prey, specialising in tortoises, with the tortoises being dropped from a height, the same as the bones, to break open the shell. They do the same with other prey, for example, hares and hyraxes.

Bearded Vulture Breeding

The bearded vulture breeding season is from May to June. 1 or 2 eggs are laid in a nest that is around 1 metre wide, built in a pothole or shallow cave on a cliff. The nest becomes larger with each breeding season, up to around 2 metres, with a covering of various animal matter.

The eggs are incubated for approximately 60 days and the hatchlings will spend up to 130 days in the nest before fledging. The young are dependent on the adults for close to 2 years, this leads to the vulture breeding every second year.

Bearded Vulture Behaviour

The bearded vulture tends to be solitary, but when breeding they may be seen in pairs. This vulture likes to fly very close to the rocky ground, sometimes only 2 m above the ground.

Threats

Due to a number of reasons, including dwindling habitat and increasing population numbers, poisoning, from eating carcasses of predators poisoned by farmers, collisions with power lines and nest disturbance, the bearded vulture has been classified as endangered in South Africa and near-threatened in the rest of the world. Most of the factors threatening the bearded vulture are human induced.

Distribution and Habitat

In South Africa, bearded vultures are found in the Drakensberg Escarpment and surrounding foothills. The bearded vulture is seldom found below 1000 m above sea level, above the tree line. They have been recorded at an altitude of 7500 m.