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This is a Long Billed Vulture - Gyps indicus.
Range
The Long-billed or Indian Griffon Vulture can be found in the Indian sub-Continent and across towards northern Malaysia, where a few straggles might appear.
It prefers open country, cultivated land and natural savannah, shunning rain forest and is resident throughout its range.
Description
There are two races. Some authorities consider them seperate species. Gyps indicus indicus is found in northern India and further east, and Gyps indicus tenuirostris is found in the plains of the Indus and Ganges rivers.
In the adult of the northern race, the bare skin of head and neck is a dirty grey-brown, sparsely powdered with white down and terminated with a buff ruff. The feathers of the back and upper-wing coverts are sepia brown, with paler edges, producing a generally pale upper-side with darker mottlings. The tail and primary quills above and below are black/brown, the secondaries being more sepia. The crop patch is dark brown with white down around it. The feathers of the under-side are light brown with dark shafts, darker brown on the axillaries. The under-wing coverts are light brown with buff edges. The eyes are brown, the cere dull grey/green, and the legs dark grey.
The head and neck of immatures has a scattering of white down over a brown ruff. Above is mostly brown with pale rufous edges to the feathers and distinct rufous/buff shaft streaks. The crop patch is brown. Te under-side is light brown, with cream streaks. The thighs, abdomen and under-tail coverts are paler, and the under-wing coverts are almost white.
The southern race is similar, but the head and neck are completely naked, and it is somewhat smaller.
Diet
The diet of the Long-billed Vulture consists of carrion, usually putrid, but sometimes fresh. It is customary in some parts of their range for human corpses to be placed in high places, from where the Long-billed Vulture will feed. This practise has a deep cultural and religious significance.
Voice
In common with many vultures, there is only a limited range of vocalisation, restricted to hissing and cackling by young and adults.
Status and behaviour in the wild
The Long-billed Vulture is the smallest of Indian Griffon Vultures. In adult plumage the pale colour with dark wing arid tail quills in contrast distinguish it from the Oriental White-backed Vulture (Gyps bengalensis ). lmmatures are more difficult to distinguish from immature White-backed Vultures, but the longer, more slender bill is a good identification point, and the White-backed Vulture is always heavier looking and darker.
This has always been the common vulture of the Himalayan foothills, the plains of india, and further east. It is more rare in Indo-China, and does not penetrate into true forest country, like in Malaysia. The two races differ slightly in habits, Gyps indicus indicus preferring mountainous country with crags and roosting in groups on crags, and Gyps indicus tenuirostris inhabiting plains without crags and roosting in trees or on buildings. This is most probably no more than an adaptation to the available terrain.
This vulture is now becoming extremely rare, probably due to a disease. Much has been featured elsewhere on the web, and the following links will give a good start -
Vulture Crisis - an emergency situation
Vulture alert!
The Peregrine Fund - Conservation Programs - Asian Vulture Crisis
Gyps indicus indicus has much the same habits as other rock-loving Griffons, while Gyps indicus tenuirostris behaves very much like Gyps bengalensis. It leaves its roost in the morning when the sun has warmed the air enough to create thermal currents, and then spends much of the day soaring, descending to find food. At a carcase it is at a disadvantage against larger and heavier vultures such as the Cinereous Vulture (Aegypius monachus ) or the Himalayan Griffon Vulture (Gyps himalayensis), but is able to hold its own with White-backed and Indian Black Vultures (Sarcogyps calvus ), with which it normally comes in contact. It may roost in company with these other vultures in the neighbourhood of a carcase and, like them, will occasionally feed on moonlit nights.
Visit the official Red List site for current conservation status of this species. Let me know about any bad or broken links.
Breeding behaviour
As stated above, it nests either on crags (G. i. indicus), or on trees (G. I. tenuirostris). When on crags the colonies are usually small, but may be larger - sometimes up to twenty pairs. When in trees it nests in loose colonies, one nest per tree, usually high up. and showing a preference for mango trees when available. Nests built on rocks are small, two to three feet across and six inches deep, but on trees they are more solid structures, 30 inches wide by fifteen to twenty inches deep, sometimes even larger. In either case the site is used for many years. The nests are made of sticks, lined with green leaves, and with pieces of skin, rags and other rubbish.
One egg is laid, oval, white, sometimes lightly spotted and blotched with reddish brown. Eggs are laid from mid-November to early March. G. i. tenuirostris may breed on average a little earlier than G. i. indicus.
Both sexes incubate and attend the young. Incubation takes about 50 days. Only about 50% of occupied nests produce young in any year. |
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