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Lammergeier

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REPROCESSED LAMMERGEIERS

Young Lammergeiers at the Buseu feeding station in Catalonia (Mike Watson) CLICK IMAGES FOR LIGHTBOX

THE PEAK DISTRICT LAMMERGEIER got me thinking about my previous encounters with this special bird. I had struggled to see one for years, having missed it in Turkey, Israel and even Nepal until I finally caught up with one on its nest on a remote cliff face in the mountains of Lesotho of all places! After that distant encounter the floodgates opened when I started guiding Wild Images tours to Catalonia and, later, Ladakh to the point where I have been lucky to have enjoyed almost 100 sightings in all sorts of situations. The most thrilling of these were without a doubt from photo hides in the Pre-Pyrenees of Catalonia, arranged via Steve West of Birding in Spain at Buseu and Serra de Boumort. I had been thinking of going back to see the Peak District Lammergeier in the hope of a better photo but instead I decided to take a look through my archives at photos of young birds from Catalonia and reprocessed a few of them.

Check out that crazy red eyeliner! (Mike Watson)

OK images taken with the 1DIV almost 10 years ago are way noisier than the 1DX but I found a couple I like that I had forgotten about. My good friend Keith Regan had said something very honest to me in 2013, that he thought my photos were far too warm, like Kodacolour Gold back in the 80s. So nowadays I always check the auto WB recommendation in Lightroom when processing images. You might ask why not just have the camera set to auto WB? Well, I don’t bother what setting the camera is set on as it doesn’t really matter when I am going to check it in processing later anyway. With green backgrounds a colder WB is invariably needed to subdue it, as in the case at Buseu, where the feeding area and surrounding pine forest is very green. It also makes the vultures look less orangey and more sinister and I like that.

A dozen enormous tail feathers, like a third wing, make Lammergeiers very agile for such a big bird (Mike Watson)

It was also great to remember some of these majestic birds with full tails, albeit a bit ragged by late April, it is a shame that the current Peak District bird is missing its third wing or it would be even more impressive. Let’s hope that it stays long enough for it to grow back. I’m hoping that someone will set up a feeding station for it. Lambs legs go down very well! Sometimes two per sitting in my experience! Many thanks to my friends in Catalonia who made these photos possible, Steve West, Jordi Bas and especially Jordi Canut at Buseu, where these images were taken. I hope to return one day to this wonderful corner of the Iberian Peninsula.


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LAMMERGEIER IN THE PEAK DISTRICT

Lammergeier (or Bearded Vulture), Howden Edge, Peak District National Park, 13 July 2020

AFTER TWO HOURS OF SLOGGING ACROSS PEAK DISTRICT MOORLAND from Derwent Dam, the first hour of which was in darkness, I reached the marker on the OS map above Howden Edge at 4.30 am. Finally the Lammergeier’s lair was before me, a remote gritstone crag by a small waterfall at the head of Abbey Brook and there it was in the half light, a prehistoric-looking creature, cloaked by a dark hood, its evil white eyes peering across the narrow valley at me every now and again. I was able to watch it for nearly two hours, during which time a male merlin and a couple of ravens passed by, then it suddenly flew off the crag, gliding down to land on the scree below before it took to the air again and gained height, its shockingly massive almost 3m wingspan seemed to fill the valley. It left stage right, heading downstream at around 6.20am, after which it turned north and flew over Margory Hill. The fact that it is missing its third wing is a bit disappointing but presumably it tells the story of a rough time this massive out-of-place vulture has endured. Let’s hope no-one has taken a shot at it in what is one of the worst areas for the persecution of raptors in the UK. All it is trying to do is to clear up dead sheep carcases! It still looks pretty good head-on and doesn’t seem to mind the birders dotted round its chosen territory at the moment. If I return I will probably pick a sunny day with blue skies and try the Mortimer Road approach as despite this being much boggier, it has minimal ascent compared to the 500m+ on the 12km return hike from Derwent Dam, which includes a couple of nasty sections with very narrow sheep paths and drop-offs.

 

A hike in the dark to Lost Lad 518m

The Lammergeier’s roosting cliff on the east side of Abbey Brook, viewed from Berristers Tor

The Lair of the Lammergeier, Abbey Brook

 

Only the second British record, this bird is presumably from one of the southern European reintroduction schemes but we can at least be sure that it has made its way here under its own steam having been seen in Belgium before it crossed the Channel and took up residence in the High Peak of the Derbyshire/Yorkshire border. We now know they can obviously cross the Channel and with this bird so hot on the heels of the one in the southwest who knows what might happen if this one stays and another one joins it? It is not such a crazy thought now! However, I can’t imagine the super-conservative BOU will add it to the British List in a category other than E even though the birds from the reintroduction schemes appear to be flourishing, at least as well I am told, as White-tailed Eagle was when it was placed in category C3 (as well as A), thanks to the Scottish breeding birds. Bearded Vulture would be a very popular addition to the lists of the many birders who have made the pilgrimage to see it over the weekend. Whatever category it ends up in, it is a wild-bred Lammergeier, which migrated to England and that alone is something and a very fine sight over the Peak District landscape too. A bright light during the Covid-19 pandemic. Well, if it survives long enough to regrow its tail that will be something else…

 

Finally, thanks to Alan Lewis and Sam Viles for viewing tips beforehand and to Ray Scally and Alex Lees for keeping me company on the long walk back, not to mention all the other birders and toggers who behaved well and let the Lammergeier do its thing without disturbing it. The last time I saw a UK lifer on 13 July was 35 years ago, a Marsh Sandpiper at Hauxley in Northumberland, followed by a chilli (made by Nick Watmough, sorry this slipped my mind Nick!!!) and watching Live Aid with old friend Ken Shaw. Happy days!

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MIDNIGHT LAMMERGEIER

LAMMERGEIER IMAGES CAN BE STRIKING AS TINY SUBJECTS AGAINST A VAST LANDSCAPE. I was hide testing for our partners in Catalonia, La Sabina, and even though I was not lucky to have a bird land at their new feeding station (as they had been doing regularly the previous week) I still managed a nice composition. A wonderful partly snowy Pyrennean background dominates the scene in front of their hide but the only Lammergeier(s) I saw were in the valley below and bored with no sign of any other worthwhile opportunities I tracked a distant bird as it passed across the mountainside, firing when it crossed a dark pine forest. I always shoot fully manual and was happily correctly exposed for the bird, therefore darkening the forest below it and giving an almost night-time effect. Just a lucky outcome but now one of my favourite Lammer images and another lesson that birds do not need to be big in the frame and tightly-cropped like a postage stamp. See how the Lammergeier's massive tail make it look like it has a third wing!

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BAD TO THE BONE

HIGH IN CATALONIA'S SERRA DE BOUMORT (= 'mountain of the dead cow' on account of the cows that got their legs stuck in or were fatally injured in the rocky landscape) we enjoyed probably our best photo session so far for Lammergeiers. They are notoriously shy creatures and take some time to come down for a free meal, circling for ages and thoroughly checking the surrounding area for danger before risking a landing. The local population of these truly amazing birds continues to flourish, thanks to the regular supply of carrion put out for the last 30 years at several feeding stations in this part of the Pre-Pyrenees range. Here they are 'bone-swallowers' rather than 'bone-breakers', thanks to the ideally-sized sheep's limbs provided for them. As usual we saw all four regular Spanish vultures from the hide including an insane frenzy of griffons but the Lammers stole the show, also as usual. They have the look of a missing link about them and would not be out of place in such as Avatar with their striking plumage, beard (or rather moustache) and just under three meters wingspan! PH1 stomach acid allows the vultures to digest bone inside 24 hours - I have seen them swallow two sheep legs at one sitting previously.

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