Himalayan Vulture(Gyps himalayensis)
The griffon vulture is a close relative. A Himalayan vulture is the second largest of the Old World vultures, after the cinereous vulture. The Himalayan vulture has a bald white head, wings that are very wide, and short tail feathers. Its neck ruff is white and it has a yellow bill. Its dark flight feathers contrast with its wing coverts and whitish body. The legs are covered with buffy feathers and the feet can vary from greenish grey to white. The upperside is unstreaked, pale buff with the tail quills, outer greater coverts and wing quills being a contrasting dark brown. The inner-secondaries have paler tips.
Habitat
The Himalayan vulture mostly lives the Himalayas on the Tibetan plateau (India, Nepal and Bhutan, central China and Mongolia) and is also found in the Central Asian mountains (from Kazakhstan and Afghanistan in the west to western China and Mongolia in the east). Occasionally it migrates to northern India but migration usually only occurs altitudinally. Breeding is typically at elevations of 600 to 4,500 m.
Foraging can be at elevations of 5,000 m or more. Non-breeding migrants including juvenile birds usually spend the boreal winter near the southern tip of their range, in the lowland plains just to the south of the Himalayas. Most of the plateau landscape consists of meadow, particularly in the north, and the rest is mostly alpine shrub, with forests in the south.
Diet
The Himalayan vulture is carnivore and scavenger, eating only carrion.
Breeding
Himalayan vultures are monogamous and pairs return to the same nesting and roosting sites from year to year. The pairs engage in aerial displays, soaring close to one another. Breeding is usually during winter, from December until March. Both adults build or repair the large nest of sticks. A single white egg is laid, usually in January, and incubation is for 50 days, with both parents taking turns. Both are also equally involved in feeding their chick. Both males and females preen their nestling, watch it, move it around, and feed it. The young bird stays with its parents until it is six to seven months old.
Population
According to the IUCN Red List, the total Himalayan vulture population size is 100,000-499,999 individuals, assumed to equate to 66,000-334,000 mature individuals. Currently this species is classified as Near Threatened (NT), but its numbers today appear to be stable.
Threats
The major potential threat to the continued survival of the Himalayan vulture is considered to be death from ingesting diclofenac (NSAID) an anti-inflammatory non-steroidal drug widely used for livestock, primarily in South Asia, which causes visceral gout in birds that have eaten contaminated carcasses and results in renal failure.
Conservation
The ecological surveys were made from the trails on the peaks of mountains for wider visualization of both the sides, as bird’s-eye view. 4K UHD camera of Conservation Drone was employed for the portraits of species and habitat during surveys without operating the aircraft. Operating Unmanned Air Vehicles (UAV) was open before the 2015's mega-earthquake in Nepal, but Nepal government cracked down their uses from the post-earthquake due to uncontrolled influx through international media and humanitarian teams. Long term monitoring of vultures in the Himalayas has been progressing, since 2013 by local team and experts but was stopped in 2015 due to quake.