I clicked this photograph some 3 odd years ago, somewhere in the back-roads of Hassan district. (Handycam with poor still-shot capabilities, beg pardon.) Rather majestic bird, great wingspan and everything.
I've spent the last hour trying to ID this bird, to no avail. Alas, wiki has finally failed me.
Many thanks will be given to the one who can identify this bird.
Psst. Those who get back to me with 'looks like an eagle' will be skewered.
Addendum: (6.55 pm, the same day)
I found it! Looks like wiki didn't fail me after all! (Even though I needed a google image search before that.)
The bird is Neophron percnopterus, the Egyptian Vulture.
Magnificient bird, this. Symbolic of one of the most ancient of the Egyptian gods, Nekhbet.
There were decent-sized populations in southern India at some point in time, apparently. Most of them have died through Diclofenac poisoning. The bird entered the IUCN red list for endangered species in 2007.
I might have caught a glimpse of one of the last thousand or so of these birds surviving in the country.
6 comments:
hey! I saw the bird the day before yesterday somewhere on the highway! don't remember where though, somewhere on the way to Madikeri...
Really? Wow!
So there are still a few of them surviving here then. Cool! :)
yes, I know. :) Very strange looking bird. How funny that I should find it on your blog two hours after I come back home! It's pretty big. I wish I had gotten a photograph too. We were quite close, but we were going to fast.
Hehe. Yeah, I have a blurry picture of the bird in flight as well.
My first guess was that it was a fishing eagle of some kind... kinda assumed that after looking at the hooked beak.
Gostei muito desse post e seu blog é muito interessante, vou passar por aqui sempre =) Depois dá uma passada lá no meu site, que é sobre o CresceNet, espero que goste. O endereço dele é http://www.provedorcrescenet.com . Um abraço.
Bird boring me senseless. Please put new post, any post.
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