Chinese name: Hú wū jiù;
English name: Bearded vulture;
Scientific name: Gypaetus barbatus.
The bearded vulture, also known as the bearded eagle, the bearded eagle, the bearded vulture, and the bearded vulture, is the only member of the genus Hu Vulture. Its natural habitat is 500 to 4000 meters above sea level in the bare rock areas of the mountains. It prefers to live in open areas, such as grasslands, tundra, highlands and heather wastelands, and also likes to settle in the rocks or cliffs of the sea and inland. They also drop bones from high in the air and then eat fragments of those bones from the ground. They also got the name Bone Crusher because of this habit.
Body length: 95-125 cm
height:
Weight: 5-7 kg
life:
Diet: Feeds mainly on bare bones
Reproduction: Each clutch lays usually 2 eggs
Distribution: Asia, Europe, Africa
Appearance characteristics:
Bearded vultures are 95-125 cm long, have a wingspan of about 235–280 cm, and weigh about 5–7 kg. The whole body plumage of the bearded vulture is roughly black-brown. Its name is derived from the black whiskers that hang under its mouth. The head and neck are not as bare as vultures and vultures, but have rusty white full feathers, and there is a circle of black and long eyebrow-like markings around the eyes - black through the eye lines, extending forward to the whisker-like feathers of the chin as if wearing a pair of glasses. Adult bearded vultures have dark brown upper back, short shoulder feathers, and medial covert feathers with yellow or white feathers, and the rest of the upperparts are black-gray or black-brown with white feathers. The tail is long, wedge-shaped, dark brown or grey-brown. The underparts are orange-skinned yellow to yellowish brown , the thorax is particularly bright orange-yellow , sometimes the underparts are white or milky white , but distinctly embellished with brown or reddish brown , and the tarsals are feathered to or almost to the toe. The juveniles are predominantly dark brown , with pale feathers on the upper body , a mostly black head and neck , and a black " beard " on the chin. It is usually not until 4 to 5 years that it has the same feathers as adult birds, and before that, the lower body has become faint year by year, but until it becomes an adult bird, the lower body has not been stained brown.
Ecological habits:
Its natural habitat is in the bare rock areas of the mountains at an altitude of 500 to 4000 meters. It can be seen between ravines, plateaus and mountains interspersed with grasslands. In the Himalayas, you can fly over the highest peaks of more than 8,000 meters. Some mountainous areas in Africa and Asia are more widely distributed, but the European region is more threatened.
In order to find food, the bearded vulture can soar for 9 to 10 hours a day, flying at an altitude of more than 7,000 meters. When necessary, they can also use the movement of the tail feathers and the slight rotation of the primary flight feathers to make rapid ground flights at an altitude of 3 to 5 meters above the ground.
The food of the bearded vulture is quite special, mainly naked bones. The esophagus of the bearded vulture is very elastic, so it can swallow entire huge bones (as large as the vertebrae of cattle). If the bone is too big, the vulture will fly 50 to 80 meters high and let it fall, falling to a size that can be swallowed. Bone marrow is their 90% food source.
The bearded vulture guards the carcass of a sheep or antelope. Wait patiently until the soft parts of the body have been cleared, at which point the vultures will grab their own sheep bones and fall from a height of 50 to 100 meters down the slopes or rocky areas of the cliff, breaking these bones. Its throat is 70 mm wide and the measurement can swallow entire bones up to 35 mm to 25 cm in diameter. In times of food shortage, they also eat other small mammals, even human babies, or insects, turtles, and lizards.
The vulture has strong vision, with 1.5 to 2 million visual cells in the fovea of the patched area of the retina, much higher than the 200,000 visual cells in the same region. Thus, at the same distance, the bearded vulture is much clearer than the objects seen by humans.
Nevertheless, due to the very complex environment on the ground, in order to find the carcass more smoothly, they also pay great attention to the observation of ghouls such as crows, kites, jackals, hyenas, etc., and are particularly good at using the largest crow on the plateau - the raven. Whenever the raven found food and chirped loudly, the vulture flew over to compete for food and pushed the raven aside so that it could only pick up some crumbs of meat to fill its hunger; and when the raven found danger and flew away while chirping, the vulture fled quickly.
Growth and reproduction:
The breeding period of the bearded vulture is from February to May. It nests in large crevices and caves in the rock walls of alpine cliffs. The nest is disc-shaped, slightly concave on the inside, mainly composed of dead branches, with dry grass, fine branches, cotton, waste fragments and so on. Each clutch usually lays 2 eggs, and the second chick emerges a week after the first one breaks its shell and is much smaller than the first chick. This little chick is actually just a substitute for the big chicks when there is an accident. In the case of food shortages, small chicks sometimes become a hunger for large chicks. Vultures often fight each other for the best nesting positions, and in many cases the vultures take over the nests left by the golden eagles.
Survival Status:
In the early 20th century, the bearded vulture was a relatively common bird in some alpine regions of Europe, but later, the local people mistakenly believed that it was hunted for a pest bird for animal husbandry, resulting in a sharp decline in its number. The Bearded Vulture still has a certain population in China, mainly inhabiting the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and its adjacent areas, although such large birds of prey are still relatively easy to see in western China, but the number is gradually decreasing.