Mondays. Blah, horrible start to the week. So lets liven this up a little. Check this Bearded Vulture out, pretty amazing ya? Now to get your brain working this Monday and into gear. 1. Make coffee or herbal tea. 2. Sit down and focus. 3. Educate yourself on this amazing species of bird. 4. Enjoy your day. The bearded vulture, or lammergeier, is one intense bird. It lives on a steady diet of bones and dyes its feathers blood red, giving it the reputation of one of the most metal birds in the animal kingdom. As a result of its appearance and diet, the vulture has a nasty reputation of carrying away lambs, calves, and even children. This is, of course, disputable; the birds are not known to be hostile toward (living) humans. Eighty percent of the birds diet consists of bone and bone marrow. Its stomach acid has a pH of about 1, so the dense material can be digested in under 24 hours. The lammergeier is a scavenger; after finding a picked-over carcass, the bird will drop it from a tremendous height to shatter it into swallow-able pieces. Bearded vultures even have favorite breaking spots that are ominously called ossuaries. Besides bones, they also eat small lizards and turtles. WILD LAMMERGEIERS RUB SOIL INTO THEIR FEATHERS TO LOOK MORE INTIMIDATING.:o Bearded vultures come in various shades, from pure white to orange-red. Soils stained with iron oxide give the birds their fiery appearance. Lammergeiers apply the dirt with their claws and then preen for about an hour to ensure a bright orange glow. They are also attracted to other red things, like leaves and red wood. Captive birds also partake in this behavior, which suggests the activity is instinctual, not learned. Bearded Vultures are most commonly monogamous, and breed once a year. Sometimes, especially in certain areas of Spain and France, bachelor lammergeiers will join a pre-existing couple to create a polyandrous trio. Females accept secondary mates because it increases the chances of producing offspring and doubles her protection. The birds usually dont lay more than three eggs, so they can use all the help they can get. These giant birds can grow up to 4 feet tall. They have a wingspan between 7 and 9 feet and usually weigh around 10 to 15 pounds. Together, the birds form a minor lineage called Accipitridae. Egyptian Vultures have white feathers with bright yellow faces. Unlike their cousins, these vultures are tiny; theyre usually a little under 4 pounds, with a wingspan of 5.6 feet, making them the smallest of all vultures. In captivity, lammergeiers can live to the ripe old age of 45. The average lifespan of a wild vulture is only 21.4 years, but that factors in the untimely deaths that come with the dangers of the wild. Believing that the vultures would carry off babies, concerned parents hunted the birds to the brink of extinction. The vultures were completely eradicated from most areas in Eastern Europe by the 1990s. Today, the vultures have been categorized as least concern by the IUCN thanks to having a large range of habitats and the efforts of various environmental groups.
Posted on: Mon, 01 Dec 2014 02:38:21 +0000
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