2023-06-15 06:05:00
“We saw regarding 20 crows flying towards the trees and attacking him. Tall ships, that’s often how we find them”.
Priceless experience for Vincent Legrand. This Saturday, June 10, 2023, wildlife photographer flushed out an extremely rare bird in the Belgian sky: the bearded vulture. Stronger: the meeting took place in Brussels, not far from the cooling tower on the edge of the canal, on the border between Anderlecht, Forest and Ruisbroek.
Where one should be surprised is that the raptor originating from Central Asia and the Middle East, is present in Europe only in the Alps, the Pyrenees, the Massif Central and Crete. “It is a Mediterranean species which is not supposed to fly here. We should only have 2 or 3 occurrences of different birds, at most”, agrees the Brussels photographer, who has been tracking rarities for 30 years. Who admits to being all the more surprised that the scavenger observed in Forest was not ringed. “Europe has undertaken a major push to reintroduce the species in the Alps. From captivity, these birds pair with wild individuals. Genetically, they can be disoriented and leave the mountains”. It is these reintroduced bearded vultures, already rare, that amateurs generally come across in our latitudes. “But here, it’s a wild individual”, supports Vincent Legrand. “Because he doesn’t wear a ring or paint marking his feathers.”
scavenger
The bearded vulture is a scavenger. “It is at the very end of the food chain”, develops the enthusiast. “In the mountains, when a large predator, a bear, a wolf, a lynx, kills a prey, it feeds on it and then scavengers like vultures, crows, foxes arrive. Then the flies. And it is only when only the bones remain that the bearded vulture intervenes”. This great vulture with the feathers of the neck of fire then feeds on tendons, ligaments, bones and their marrow. He is known for his unique technique: when the bones are too big, he drops them on the rock from the sky to break them and swallow smaller pieces. “Its gastric juices then ensure digestion”.
Here too, Vincent Legrand is surprised. “In Belgium, it is forbidden to leave an animal carcass in the open air, to prevent the spread of disease. However, the rare bearded vultures observed in the Benelux manage to feed themselves”. As proof, he points to a female accidentally killed by a train in the Netherlands a month ago. “For the past two years, bearded vultures have been observed every year on the De Hoge Veluwe nature reserve. All are from reintroduction. The bird caught by a train has been autopsied. He had deer feet in his stomach. He was in great shape, proof that he can feed himself”. A challenge for this behemoth of the air, up to 3 meters wide and weighing 5 to 7 kg. “It moves like large raptors or tall ships, storks and pelicans. In the morning, it takes off flapping its wings which drains it of a lot of energy. Then it saves itself: it lets itself be carried by a warm ascending current then hovers to the next one, like a spring. At Forest, he has already had to spend a lot fighting once morest the crows. Then it flew over the container park and disappeared in the direction of Brussels”.
If you were walking in Pajottenland this Saturday, June 10, you may have seen it pass over your heads.
Unruly climate opens up new routes
Forest’s bearded vulture isn’t the only unusual bird seen in our skies in recent weeks. The Natuurpunt association even speaks of a “southern bird tsunami”. Among which 24 griffon vultures, small eagles and even an imperial eagle.
For Vincent Legrand, it is “clearly” a phenomenon due to the abnormally hot climate. “It’s felt even more in other parts of Europe,” testifies this tireless traveler. “I was able to observe the white-necked alque in Huelva, Spain. It is a species from the North Pacific, close to the penguin. It is specific to the Bering Sea, between Alaska and Russia! The only reason for its presence so far south in the Atlantic is the opening of the ice: it is melting and the animals pass through the waters. This is also the case for cetaceans such as humpback whales which, from the Pacific, are found in Norwegian waters”.
According to the Brussels wildlife photographer, who has come across killer whales, wolves, lynxes and walruses, these are “frightening” information.
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