[pushbike]

On Holiday in Loire Valley last week saw five birds that I think were vultures.
Appeared to be about the size of a grey heron in flight but with greater wingspan.
White / pale chest and belly, same on underwings near body but black / dark rest of wing and tips, splayed wingtip feathers.
Shortish neck (for a vulture?) could have been drawn in towards shoulders, top of head white / pale. Deep "fattish" beak.
Back and upper wings dark / black.
Behaviour: seen only in the evening (every evening) soaring and flying above river only, not over land. Occasionally nearly hoverring but not quite, before swooping towards river but unfortunately never saw any of these birds touch water! or rocks!
some appeared to be a bit larger than others, could've been distance though, always seen individually except one pair flying straight along the river.
Would love to know what these birds were, vultures or not, so please help.....Thanks

pushbike

[Michael Frankis]

Hi Pushbike,

Certainly sounds like Griffon Vultures. I gather there is a re-introduction experiment somewhere in that area (a bit like the UK Red Kite re-introductions)

Michael

PS I see this is your first post - welcome to the forum!

[Colin]

Hi Pushbike,
On behalf of all of the Moderators and Admin, welcome to Bird Forum. We look forward to more posts from you in the future and I think that you will find lots of friendly and helpful people here (you already have found one above). Your description sounds like vulture species to me and from the size difference there may have been another raptor species present or a female/male size difference of the same species(females usually the bigger).

[Andrew]

Yes here I am, why should this concern me? Are you saying they could come to Devon?

[Rob Smallwood]

Am I the only person concerned that these raptors were seen exclusively over water, hovering and swooping down?.

Also from the size these birds sound considerably smaller than Griffon Vultures?

What price Egyptian Vulture (size and description OK but habits not), or better still Osprey?

[Edward]

They don't really sound like Griffon Vultures to me either. Griffon Vultures seem considerably bigger than Grey Herons in flight to me but accurately judging size is always very difficult. They're not very dark above nor particularly pale below and I've never seen them swoop like you described. They just seem to circle for hours or sit in the rocks making a cacophony. Osprey sounds more likely, dark above, pale below but do you get them in central France in July? I just don't know.

Andrew, I think Spar meant that Northerners are spreading (?)

E

[Surreybirder]

The size is worrying. Griffon vultures are more eagle-sized. On the other hand, they could have been coming in to their roosting ledges, which are quite likely to be in a gorge with a river running through it. If you could see details of the bills, could you make out whether the necks were feathered or not? Vultures don't have any feathering on the neck, and there's a sort of ruff where the feathering ends.
They look very rectangular-winged and the ends of the primary feathers stick out like fingers in a way that is quite distinctive.
I remember one circling above me when I walked across an arid area of the Bharatpur nature reserve in India... quite an intimidating feeling!

[Michael Frankis]

I'm also wondering - the Loire Valley is a huge area - whereabouts exactly? Checked up, the vulture re-introduction is in the Cevennes, right up at the headwaters of the Loire (if in its valley at all! - my French geography is a bit hazy!!). So I suspect I was wrong with suggesting Griffon Vulture.

Osprey does also sound reasonable on plumage, but five together in this area??

Michael

[Rob Smallwood]

Michael

I don't think that there were 5 together - the original posting says never seen all together.

[pushbike]

I've had a look at some images of ospreys on the internet and they seem pretty close to my description of colouring. I guess that fits in with size and behaviour as well.....

I thought that it might be a vulture because it did have a slightly elongated neck, but I see from some of the images I've seen Ospreys necks can appear long...(when hunting?).

Also a search on google for "osprey loire" comes up with quite a few articles on the ospreys around the area we were (Orleans).

So I guess that clears that up....Thanks for your help.

Pushbike