Great trip to the Vulture Restaurant

We got up quite early and were on the road before the sun even broke over the mountains. It was bitterly cold, but we got some fresh cinnamon buns on the way there, so I was pretty satisfied with that.

Seeing that my previous visits were a little short of successful, I was a bit skeptical that this trip would be any better.

I was pleasantly surprised.

We arrived around 7:30 and the cow carcass was placed in front of the hide. Within minutes crows had begun to gather and call to each other, alerting friends of their incredibly good luck. The crows attracted the vultures, and around 8:15 we had our first interested Himalayan Griffon come sit close by in a tree.

Over the next 5 minutes more vultures began circling, and it was actually a White Back that came down to the carcass first.
This brave solider paved the way, and almost immediately close to a hundred vultures were fighting their way towards the middle of the group. We could not see even the slightest bit of cow carcass.

Within a half hour, 90% of the carcass had been eaten, those were some hungry birds!
We continued to watch the birds try to find any remaining scraps, but all that was left were bones. The sun was growing stronger and many of the birds were stretching out their large wings to catch as much as possible. Sunning is good for feather condition, but also helps to warm the birds up on such a cold morning.

In all, we counted close to 100 Himalayan Griffon vultures, about 15-20 White Back vultures, and we also observed two Red Headed vultures. The White Backs and Red Heads are threatened species, so as much as we'd like to have seen more of them, seeing the birds was a wonderful addition to the feed.