It seems to me that what England lacks is vultures. I’m recently back from Spain, where I’ve been travelling in the Pyrenees with my old friend Chris Breen, chief exec of the travel company Wildlife Worldwide. And it was vultures that stole the show.
Mostly it was the griffon vultures that dominated: great big cruisy birds that hug the cliff-edges, flying so close you can’t believe they won’t bump into the wall and fall out of the sky. It’s finger-tip control on those updrafts of wind and in those columns of warm air, the thermals in which the birds can hitch a free ride to the clouds and beyond.
Among them you can find the odd Egyptian vulture: white, much smaller, and with a delicate little hook of a bill: a much more finicky class of scavenger. I didn’t get lucky with the black vulture, but I never mind that too much: always glad for a reason to come back. I prefer my lists uncompleted.
But marvellous views of lammergeier: long narrow wings and a tail shaped like a diamond: vast imposing birds with an air of monumental self-confidence. There is something thrillingly unEnglish about such birds, even if the odd Egyptian vulture has made it to England.
There are several reasons for England’s shortage of vultures. The first is there is lack of large carcases on the ground. We don’t go in for vast open-range areas for livestock. When EU regulations, coming in during the BSE emergency, required carcases to be cleared up at once, the Spanish vulture population plummeted.
These days they are fed routinely with slaughterhouse leavings; I’ve been to such places and it’s a stimulating change from your usual bird table of peanuts and bird-feeders. A lot better than no vultures. They know the day of delivery and recognise the van from miles off: ancient vulturine skills used in a new way for the same old purpose.
Another reason for the shortage of English vultures is the shortage of lift. Big ranges of mountains with permanent winds, updraughts and ridge-winds are important for vultures, so and is the warm air that makes for those temperature differences that creates thermals. Massive birds like vultures would find it hard to stay airborne in England.
The traditional English scavenger was always the red kite, much smaller and less reliant on the possibilities of soaring. Hamlet – admittedly nominally Danish — regretting his failure to murder his uncle, says: “I should have fatted all the region kites with this slave’s offal”. Kites, not vultures, for Hamlet, and for England. A good job we’ve reintroduced them: the corpse of King Claudius wouldn’t last long if you laid it out on the M40, under the famous red-kite sector of the motorway.
Spain is good place to forget about being English for a few days, and you can do that just by looking at the sky, at least when you happen to be in the mountains. I’ve come back full of bounce. Thanks Spain, thanks, vultures, thanks Chris.
Vi says
30 March 2015 at 7:55 pmMr. Barnes, this is a fabulous article in the regard it’s been written. Even though, I’m from India and have never visited England, but I do feel that these monstrous birds happen to be an important part of the life cycle.
As a kid, when I used to go to my downtown, I would see these prodigious birds gorging on carcass of a dead animal. But now, that doesn’t happen. Either, corpses of those animals deter lying in the open or they are thrown to a nearby field.
I’m saddened by the extensive human interference in nature’s procedures. I wish, we could have a better world!
Simon Barnes says
23 May 2015 at 1:18 pmGreat to hear from you out there in India. I really must try and get back there soon. The problem you have in India with the vultures is the use of the veterinary drug diclofenac which eases inflammation in domestic stock but kills vultures. That’s why vulture numbers in South Asia have plummeted to a critical level.
Rod Bee says
30 March 2015 at 7:59 pmThanks Simon for more invigorating thoughts. Had to drive north up the A1M today to Peterborough (third return of the laptop under warranty); so I was far from happy. That was until I came across the 3-5 red kites that now frequent the area just north of Alconbury. The presence of a species like that changes one’s whole perception of life.
Simon Barnes says
23 May 2015 at 1:19 pmThat stretch of road under the Chiltern Escarpment has become one of our great nation treasures. A place where people become aware of the wild world.
Glenda White says
7 April 2015 at 6:39 pmI’ve just come back from Lanzarote and the cheeping of sparrows. I don’t have any in my garden at home but I arrived back to be buzzed by a bluetit on it’s way to the nest box in the porch, the rattling of woodpeckers and an over friendly blackbird (we have a cat). I did see some lorikeets? And some small Hawks that were too fast to identify. There were some small black and white waders on the seashore too. I do wish birds would fly around with labels, it would make life easier. A little bit concerned that I haven’t seen my bullfinches for a while and the last time I only saw Mrs B.
Simon Barnes says
23 May 2015 at 1:21 pmSounds like a lovely trip. Being baffled by a bird is just another aspect of the fun and the joys of biodiversity. If it were easy it would be no fun, and don’t worry too much about your bullfinches. They are natural skulkers. Lets just hope they’re keeping a low profile.
mtoddm15 says
6 January 2016 at 6:20 pmGreat article on an intriguing class of birds. Come to the USA for am ample supply of Black (or Turkey) vultures, particularly here in Kentucky, they seem to be everywhere in the skies, wherever you look, of course particularly along roadways.
I must be a strange bird myself, because I love driving past an old gnarled tree full of vultures, silent as the grave, stoically watching the passing cars, or holding their wings open to dry. It also makes my day when I see a hoard of them hopping around some animal corpse or other, fills me with the joy of Nature and the willies at the same time : )
I tell my kids that vultures, despite their maligned reputation and their ill-favoured appearance, are really a kindly breed: they harm no creature, they only clean up why is already dead, and they also do not swoop in selfishly when they find a steaming carcass, but instead circle circle circle high above, letting all their chums know about it, then they all descend to share a hearty meal together – kind selfless sanitation workers, these vultures.
Simon Barnes says
21 January 2016 at 5:22 pmAbsolutely, and the worlds unchallenged master of soaring.