Trained Canarian Egyptian Vulture at Jurong Bird Park Singapore
In my previous posts I had mentioned about intelligence in birds and they were mostly about parrots, pigeons and crows. Birds of prey in the wild too have a high intelligence, the levels vary.
In fact no living bird is truly stupid. As juvenile birds grow in to independent adults, their inborn genetic information and skills watched and picked up from the parent birds help them survive in the world.
Trained Canarian Egyptian Vulture
It is in this juvenile state, the birds of prey are captured from the wild. They are then trained for various purposes. Training these birds is a lengthy and complicated process and a license to train such birds have to be obtained. Owners soon realize how smart the wild birds are and it is very different from owning and caring the pet birds.
Trained Canarian Egyptian vulture trying to crack an egg
In the wild natural habitats ravens use egyptian vultures to break open eggs and feast on them. It is a kind of robbery in world of birds. While ravens can scheme things vultures can plan and execute things well. Just when the vulture successfully breaks open the egg, the group of ravens waiting slyly attack the lone vulture aggressively.
Vultures have comparatively larger brains and can wield tools but they are not able to outsmart the ravens.
At Jurong Bird Park Singapore, the trainers of these Canarian Egyptian vultures demonstrated how vultures asses the size of eggs and devise different methods to crack them open.
The smaller ones were raised and dropped on a hard surface and for bigger ones they used stones. They would pick a reasonably big sized stone and drop it on the egg. White Vultures successfully displayed their skills. And the trainers constantly rewarding them with bits of meat.
Vulture Interesting Facts
- A group of vultures is called committee, venue or volt. In flight they are called a kettle and a group feeding at a carcass, is called a wake. You can see a wake here – Vulture Sanctuary, Bikaner.
- Vultures urinate on their feet and legs to keep themselves cool. Another effect of this is that its urine kills parasites and bacteria and helps keep the birds healthy.
- A vulture’s ears are covered by a fine skin to stop food from getting in while the bird is eating so cannot be seen.
- Vultures hunt using smell. They can detect a decaying carcass by the gas Mercaptan, which is given off when decay begins.
- White-backed vultures are monogamous breeders and breed in the dry season, nesting with 2 to 13 birds in a loose colony.
- A single egg is laid and incubation is by both parents, for about 56 days.
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Perfect post with incredible photos!
Both words and images clearly educate one on the level of intelligence.
Wow! very nice
Wonderful! I have a thing for vultures, don't ask me why, they just appeal to me, maybe because they aren't 'conventionally' pretty. These white birds are delightful (and talented) (and pretty)!
Nice shots !! Great post !!
that's new to me…trained vultures? that must be good to see!
happy Wednesday!
Wow! I love photos where you catch something almost by accident, like that stone dropping in the last photo 🙂
Absolutely beautiful, wonderful creatures 🙂
I have pics like this, shot by accident and caught my cats yawning 😛
Great info and amazing snaps Indrani!!
Indrani these shots and information are wonderful.
I would like to link to this in my next post as I have also been posting about birds recently.
I'll let you know when I create the link.
best wishes
Ribbon 🙂
Doing Well
I had no idea these (or any) birds were so smart!!! I always thought birds lived by instincts alone!! Amazing Indrani!!
The last photo, with the -stone as a tool- is fascinating. No bird brains here.
Superb
Ha ha ha!
Very interesting. Wonderful read of the information especially on the part where they know how to devise in breaking their eggs.
Just been recently wondering how you are. I seem to get lost from everyone! Thanks for the visit. Much appreciated.
Those vultures are so lucky. Food is an integral part of their hobby!
Welcome back Indrani!
Itz really amazing!I liked to post very much….
I had no idea about so many strategies to break an egg 🙂
he he
And to think we associate the term bird brained with the lack of intelligence.
Your way of description and pictures are awesome.I never used to care about the avian species before.
Interesting… and lovely pics.. !!
very interesting! sure it might gone through hard training to be pretty. Nice shots.
Thats an interesting read. And liked the first pair of pictures where you realize that the vulture is dropping the egg..
Wow… She's a brainy… Is she from IIM (Lolz..)!!!
My Travelogue
I am learning more and more just how very intelligent some birds are. It's fascinating. You captured some wonderful shots here. Nicely done!
Hi Indrani, just a short visit to drop by and see this interesting post!!
Blogtrotter is now at Santa’s Homeland, an anticipated gift before Christmas 😉 Enjoy and have a great week!
Indrani, these are fabulous shots in a very informative post.
Have a great week!
How nice to have witnessed the vultures at work! I like Jurong Bird Park – a really great tweety place
Fascinating how the birds had different ways to break the eggs depending on size. Very smart!
hi
Again this time a nice story with your photograph.
They look lke skinny old men in feathered coats!
I guess they are rare birds. We must preserve them.
wow that is amazing i have never seen a white one before
Amazing to see the white vultures trained so beautifully. The vultures look very sweet.
The white vultures are really pretty, and also intelligent!
dropping a stone on the egg – that's some training indeed. I forgot about how vultures can be and just thought them cute doing those tricks. I wasn't aware a license had to be obtained to train birds. Thanks for the info.
How interesting, I'm glad they use reward methods for training.
astounding
that's pretty incredible!
Wow, very impressive..
My first Camera Critters entry is here
Nice post. Wonderful photos of the white vultures as well.
I had read in some book that egyptian vultures are use stones to break open ostrich eggs. Ostrich eggs are bigger in size and hard to break and hence it has adopted this technique to break it open.
Hi Indrani
Great story of the vulture !!
Its a very cute bird he/she looks so fluffy normal have birds a tight plumage …… 😉
Birds are very intelligence,
we had always two parakeets at home
(Before Kareltje of course 😉
and they were tame and they are walking on the table with small toys from my girls,
it looks the same as your bird 🙂
Have a relaxing weekend
🙂
Indrani,
Looks like you had a good time in singapore. Wonderful and interesting post about the white vultures. I learn something new everyday. Thanks!
Interesting that your white vultures have feathered heads. They are majestic looking. All life has its own form of intelligence to survive. Amazing, isn't it?
White Vultures! haven't seen one yet, thanks for sharing the pics.
Interesting story on their intelligence to earn their *meat*
WOW! That is really interesting! Definitely a lot of intelligence there.
Indrani: What a neat story of the vulture, nice looking bird.
What a cool and interesting post on the trained Vultures. The White Vultures are very pretty. Thanks for sharing your critter.
Very cool photos, especially that last one, where you have caught the stone dropping. Interesting facts about the vultures, thanks for posting it..
Those are incredible shots.
Silly Saturday #4 – Purdie Pyrate's Halloween
Awesome…
My Entry this week, in HERE. I hope you could visit as well. Thanks