The Bearded Vulture is the only known animal whose diet is almost exclusively bone.
The bone-eating giant bird which coats itself minerals like copper to get its rusty hue for unknown cosmetic reasons, most likely to show dominance. The brighter the hue, the more dominant the male.
They probably need the copper because its anti-bacterial properties. useful if you’re a carrion eater.
The bird has a 9 ft wingspan.
Bearded Vultures provide an indispensable service to the ecosystem, checking the spread of disease by consuming corpses. But the bearded’s diet is 95 percent bone. It can wait for the other scavengers to strip the body clean, then stroll in at its leisure to take its fill.
DO YOU LIKE BEARDED VULTURES? Even if you don't, Well we need all help possible.
Bearded Vulture Eglazine is Missing
Eglazine was born at Parco Natura Viva in Italy in 2020 and released in the wild later that year in the French Massiv Central. Since then she flew all around France, Belgium, Netherlands and Germany.
As of May 2023 her GPS has stopped sending signals and we have no information on her status. Her last know position was in Normandy. Neither her or the tag have been found. This is a call to all vulture lovers, birdwatchers and photographers to keep an eye out for her and help search for Eglazine.
But HOW Do I recognize Eglazine?
Eglazine is currently in her sub-adult phase, which means she is transitionig her plumage. Black head with some possible white feathers starting to show up, gray-brown body plumage, on her wings she had 3 bleached feathers as of her last sight but more could be present now, she has a PVC ring argent color with the code ET.
If you happen to find a Bearded Vulture that seems to possibly be Eglazine please share informations and photos to the Vulture Conservation Foundation at [email protected]
Best case scenario she just lost her GPS Tracker while molting her feathers, in the worst case scenario...
Please reblog and share this so more people can keep an eye out for any trace of her.
Photos and pictures shared are from the instagram page of Parco Natura Viva ( @parconaturaviva )I got permission to share
Bearded Vulture drawing I did last year but forgor uhhh yahoo!
(On another note, thank you all for the kind words and support on my last post! I’m always a bit nervous about posting my art online and I’m very new to tumblr but so far the art community has been so sweet! Anyway, I’ll post more plierhead soon haha)