171379 is in UAE

 

Lappet-faced vulture (ID=171379) in its nest before fledging. ©ESO, IAR.

Vultures are obligate scavenging birds, meaning they don’t hunt for live food; they have a number of physical, physiological and behavioural traits that enable them to survive.  They need these because the food that they eat (i.e. remains of dead animals) typically occurs at very low densities, spread over large areas.  To find enough food to survive and thrive, vultures typically fly over huge distances in search of food, enabled by their physical ability to soar over those huge distances using little energy by harnessing updrafts of warm air.

Movement of a young Lappet-faced vulture (ID=171379) during May – October 2022.  Green pin in far NW is the vulture's location on 14 October 2022. ©ESO, IAR.

Above is the map of a young Lappet-faced vulture that was fitted with a GPS tracking device (ID=171379) in May, just before it left its nest. Since then (almost 6 months now) it has travelled thousands of kilometres over a huge area, and in recent days it has gone “international”, visiting the UAE (Marmoom Conservation Area and near Hatta).  The movements of this bird may be particularly wide-ranging because this young bird is not yet old enough to breed, so is not yet tied to an area where it will breed. Click here to read an earlier post that details this vulture's ever wider ranging. 

Ever wider ranging by juvenile vultures

Movements of a juvenile Lappet-faced vulture in the first month after fledging.©ESO, IAR.

The process of becoming independent for nestling Lappet-faced vultures is a progressive one, much like it is with many species. Our tracking has illustrated this.  After tagging, the nestlings spent some days in the nest, then made short, then ever longer excursions away from the nest.  The map above shows the movement of a juvenile Lappet-faced vulture for the first month after tagging.

 At the beginning the young birds were mostly fed by their parents, but as they wandered more widely, they encountered food and fed themselves.  Over time they came to be entirely independent of their parents for the direct provision of their food.  The map below shows the same vulture from above, but during its 3^rd month after tagging.

Movements of a juvenile Lappet-faced vulture in the 3rd month after fledging.©ESO, IAR.

Once independent of their parents, vultures of all ages benefit from having other vultures and scavenging birds around because it helps them locate their food (dead things), which may occur only very rarely across huge areas.  In that way they are not really independent, but rather interdependent with the other scavengers.  The result is that, over time, vultures travel huge distance, especially during the non-breeding season. The map below shows the cumulative movements of a young Lappet-faced vulture until 5 October 2022 (4 months of tracking).

Movements of a juvenile Lappet-faced vulture during the first 5 months after fledging.©ESO, IAR.