Griffon vultures in Italy: another vagrant record (1 Viewer)

[Biancone]

I saw the post by Marcus Jais in this section dated 15 June the day after returning from a trip to Italy. The post links to a review of the status of vultures in Italy which noted that the Griffon Gyps fulvus had long been extinct on the mainland. I've been birding from time to time in northern Italy, specifically the northern Apennines of Emilia Romagna, since 1968. The Griffon is a very rare vagrant in the province and the thought of seeing one there never entered my head. Whenever possible I scramble up the local mountain and spend a few hours waiting hopefully for passing raptors. Sometimes a Common Buzzard will glide along the rockface when I arrive at the bottom (and often I see little else). My jaw almost hit the ground when, on 17th May this year, I looked up to see a bird the size of a barn door glide slowly past. Obviously a Griffon (almost got bored seeing them in the Pyrenees). Turns out that there have been several records from Liguria in recent years (link below) and these are believed to have been birds derived from the reintroduction project in the Alpes-Maritimes, so my bird was very probably one that reached Liguria and just kept going about another 100km southeast.

I thought little more about it until several days later (June 8th). I was going up an adjacent mountain, only about 1km from the first, when I first heard and then saw a Common Buzzard circling, screaming, and then diving repeatedly at a clump of small trees clinging onto the rockface. Eventually I guessed there may have been an unwelcome intruder within. I could just make out a shape that could have been a large dark bird, with a hint of pale yellowish feathering in a couple of places. I took a few full-zoom photos with my pocket camera without expecting they'd show anything but leaves. The Buzzard persisted and eventually a massive and very scruffy dark bird exploded out of the tree and was immediately out of my sightline. I speculated it could have been a Golden Eagle but, without a decent look, I tried not to think about it further. So imagine my surprise when I uploaded the day's images to my laptop and saw the unmistakeable shape of a vulture huddled in the trees!! Not certain, but it seems most likely that it was the same individual seen previously, but I have no idea if it had been in the vicinity since the first sighting or had wandered further afield and returned. Although encouraging, with no large wild mammals and massive decline in upland livestock, I somehow doubt that there are food resources available to support development of a local vulture population.

The images below are all very poor quality. The first shows the bird seen in May, the second shows the location of the later sighting (with the perched vulture just visible at centre), and the third zooms in on the vulture.

http://www.liguriabirding.net/easyNews/NewsLeggi.asp?IDNews=293

 

[Irish Kite]

Very interesting - Are there wolves moving into the area that might be providing carrion via kills??

 

[Biancone]

Good thinking! In fact wolves did begin to spread northward up the Apennine chain from their core range in central Italy a couple of decades ago, and there is now some erratic continuity with those in the Alpes-Maritimes. And one or two reportedly are present most winters in the area I saw the vulture. Don't know if they'd be inclined to leave good food laying about though!