{"id":1261,"date":"2014-05-31T19:31:42","date_gmt":"2014-05-31T07:31:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/?p=1261"},"modified":"2014-05-31T19:41:15","modified_gmt":"2014-05-31T07:41:15","slug":"bearded-vultures-giants-castle-vulture-hide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/archives\/1261","title":{"rendered":"Bearded Vultures &#8211; Giants Castle Vulture Hide"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Giants Castle&#8217;s Vulture Hide is an ideal venue for seeing and photographing Bearded Vultures. Their other name,\u00a0Lammergeier (Lamb vulture), came from a misconception that they preyed heavily on lambs and were thus persecuted by livestock farmers. Their predominant diet is bones which they break and digest to extract the nutrients from the fat-rich marrow. This bone feeding specialisation(Osteophagy) is quite different from\u00a0most vultures that subsist on carrion, but the Bearded Vulture is quite adaptable and in other areas, such as Ethiopia, they have adopted human refuse as a mainstay of their diet. They are quite widely distributed\u00a0through highlands in northern and central Africa, Europe across the Caucasus to the Himalaya. The Southern African population occupying Lesotho and the Drakensberg is quite isolated from other populations and\u00a0subsist on a traditional diet of bones which is supplemented by the provision of bones at the Vulture hide and other vulture restaurants. \u00a0Smaller bones are swallowed whole and digested by extremely acid (pH1) stomach secretions while larger bones are dropped from a height onto a rock to break them into smaller pieces. \u00a0The vulture will return to the same large flat rock known as an ossuary repeatedly and it could be considered an example of tool use by a bird.<\/p>\n<p>While not threatened globally the \u00a0Lesotho\/Drakensberg population is considered as threatened and has reduced in size. Locally,\u00a0breeding occurs in winter so our summer timing was not good for landings as the\u00a0vulture&#8217;s\u00a0food requirements were not as high as when feeding young. So, while we missed out on landing images, we had a few flybys by adults and juveniles and managed some decent flight shots. The juveniles have darker plumage which they lose by successive moults over six years before achieving the adult pale head, breast, underparts and leggings plumage which is stained an orange colour from iron oxide in the earth and rocks they roost on. The adult&#8217;s black face mask and beard are quite distinctive. They are quite distinct from other vultures with their feathered heads and necks and have a quite different shape with a longer tail which makes them easy to identify in flight.<\/p>\n<p>I have plenty more Giants Castle\/KZN images to share but I think we will head to the Cape next week.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_1279\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1279\" style=\"width: 639px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/BeardedVulture_D804582-web.jpg?ssl=1\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-1279\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/BeardedVulture_D804582-web.jpg?resize=639%2C426&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"Adult Bearded Vulture showing the pale, iron oxide stained, plumage\" width=\"639\" height=\"426\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/BeardedVulture_D804582-web.jpg?w=800&amp;ssl=1 800w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/BeardedVulture_D804582-web.jpg?resize=300%2C199&amp;ssl=1 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 639px) 100vw, 639px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1279\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Adult Bearded Vulture showing the pale, iron oxide stained, plumage and black mask and beard<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"attachment_1280\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1280\" style=\"width: 639px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/BeardedVultureJuvi_D804567-web.jpg?ssl=1\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-1280\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/BeardedVultureJuvi_D804567-web.jpg?resize=639%2C426&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"Juvenile Bearded Vulture showing the darker plumage\" width=\"639\" height=\"426\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/BeardedVultureJuvi_D804567-web.jpg?w=800&amp;ssl=1 800w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/BeardedVultureJuvi_D804567-web.jpg?resize=300%2C200&amp;ssl=1 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 639px) 100vw, 639px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1280\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Juvenile Bearded Vulture showing the darker plumage<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"attachment_1278\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1278\" style=\"width: 639px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/BeardedVulture_D804439-web.jpg?ssl=1\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-1278\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/BeardedVulture_D804439-web.jpg?resize=639%2C426&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"Adult showing the pale yellow eye with prominent red eye ring\" width=\"639\" height=\"426\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/BeardedVulture_D804439-web.jpg?w=800&amp;ssl=1 800w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/BeardedVulture_D804439-web.jpg?resize=300%2C200&amp;ssl=1 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 639px) 100vw, 639px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1278\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Adult showing the pale yellow eye with prominent red eye ring and the long tail<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"attachment_1277\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1277\" style=\"width: 639px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/BeardedVulture_D3S1777-web.jpg?ssl=1\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-1277\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/BeardedVulture_D3S1777-web.jpg?resize=639%2C426&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"Adult Bearded Vulture against a background of distant hills\" width=\"639\" height=\"426\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/BeardedVulture_D3S1777-web.jpg?w=800&amp;ssl=1 800w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/BeardedVulture_D3S1777-web.jpg?resize=300%2C200&amp;ssl=1 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 639px) 100vw, 639px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1277\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Adult Bearded Vulture against a background of distant hills<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Giants Castle&#8217;s Vulture Hide is an ideal venue for seeing and photographing Bearded Vultures. Their other name,\u00a0Lammergeier (Lamb vulture), came from a misconception that they preyed heavily on lambs and were thus persecuted by livestock farmers. Their predominant diet is bones which they break and digest to extract the nutrients from the fat-rich marrow. This [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birds","category-guides","entry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Bearded Vultures - Giants Castle Vulture Hide - WildLight Photography<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/archives\/1261\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Bearded Vultures - Giants Castle Vulture Hide - WildLight Photography\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Giants Castle&#8217;s Vulture Hide is an ideal venue for seeing and photographing Bearded Vultures. Their other name,\u00a0Lammergeier (Lamb vulture), came from a misconception that they preyed heavily on lambs and were thus persecuted by livestock farmers. Their predominant diet is bones which they break and digest to extract the nutrients from the fat-rich marrow. 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I had made a start but as usual after a period of leave, catching\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Bird Photography&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Bird Photography","link":"https:\/\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/archives\/category\/bird-photography"},"img":{"alt_text":"Photo of a Bearded Vulture","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/BearedVulture_D810517-NEF_DxO-web.jpg?fit=1024%2C683&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/BearedVulture_D810517-NEF_DxO-web.jpg?fit=1024%2C683&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/BearedVulture_D810517-NEF_DxO-web.jpg?fit=1024%2C683&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/BearedVulture_D810517-NEF_DxO-web.jpg?fit=1024%2C683&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1102,"url":"https:\/\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/archives\/1102","url_meta":{"origin":1261,"position":1},"title":"Giants Castle &#8211; Vulture Hide","author":"tony","date":"March 30, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"This week's blog post was written on my iPad during our flight from Durban to Cape Town and could have even been posted during the flight using the WiFi available onboard our Mango flight but I wanted to save it until I had processed some images and to try and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;birds&quot;","block_context":{"text":"birds","link":"https:\/\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/archives\/category\/birds"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/Yellow-billedKiteGiantsCastle_D3S1477-800web.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/Yellow-billedKiteGiantsCastle_D3S1477-800web.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/Yellow-billedKiteGiantsCastle_D3S1477-800web.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/Yellow-billedKiteGiantsCastle_D3S1477-800web.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1229,"url":"https:\/\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/archives\/1229","url_meta":{"origin":1261,"position":2},"title":"More from Giants Castle Vulture Hide &#8211; why is it such a great bird photography venue?","author":"tony","date":"May 25, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"The Vulture Hide at Giants Castle has long been on my bird photography bucket list. Images from there often stand out as obvious Vulture Hide shots. What makes it special? The obvious factor is the species available with it arguably being the premier venue in the world to photograph Bearded\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;birds&quot;","block_context":{"text":"birds","link":"https:\/\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/archives\/category\/birds"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/Yellow-billedKite_D804604-web.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/Yellow-billedKite_D804604-web.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/Yellow-billedKite_D804604-web.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/Yellow-billedKite_D804604-web.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":14452,"url":"https:\/\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/archives\/14452","url_meta":{"origin":1261,"position":3},"title":"Northern Giant Petrel","author":"tony","date":"July 26, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Northern Giant Petrel - vulture of the sea.","rel":"","context":"In &quot;birds&quot;","block_context":{"text":"birds","link":"https:\/\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/archives\/category\/birds"},"img":{"alt_text":"Photo of a Northern Giant Petrel - Perseverance Harbour, Campbell Island","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/NorthernGiantPetrel-D85_4942-web.jpg?fit=960%2C640&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/NorthernGiantPetrel-D85_4942-web.jpg?fit=960%2C640&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/NorthernGiantPetrel-D85_4942-web.jpg?fit=960%2C640&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/NorthernGiantPetrel-D85_4942-web.jpg?fit=960%2C640&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1233,"url":"https:\/\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/archives\/1233","url_meta":{"origin":1261,"position":4},"title":"Autumn birds at Lake Okareka","author":"tony","date":"May 17, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"After the run of South Africa posts so far this year, I am going to briefly break the series and share some images from my favourite local spot. Lake Okareka is only a few minutes up the road and within 15 minutes of leaving home I can be comfortably settled\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;birds&quot;","block_context":{"text":"birds","link":"https:\/\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/archives\/category\/birds"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/GreyTeal_D807642-1024web.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/GreyTeal_D807642-1024web.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/GreyTeal_D807642-1024web.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/GreyTeal_D807642-1024web.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":8825,"url":"https:\/\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/archives\/8825","url_meta":{"origin":1261,"position":5},"title":"Bin Chicken","author":"tony","date":"February 18, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Bin Chicken is one of the colloquial names for the Australian White Ibis (Threskiornis molucca). Other disparaging terms include, tip turkey, dump chook, trash vulture, Bankstown bin diver and winged waste lizard. They always remind me of African Sacred Ibis (Threskiornis aethiopicus), which having grown up with Hadeda Ibis in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Australia&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Australia","link":"https:\/\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/archives\/category\/australia"},"img":{"alt_text":"Australian White Ibis coming in to land","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/AustralianWhiteIbis_DSC3303-web.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/AustralianWhiteIbis_DSC3303-web.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/AustralianWhiteIbis_DSC3303-web.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/AustralianWhiteIbis_DSC3303-web.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1261","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1261"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1261\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}