Asian King Vulture

Description:

The Asian King Vulture is critically endangered species as per IUCN. Seen feeding on a carcass of a cow. If we look carefully then we can see bones in front of the bird. The adult Asian King Vulture has a prominent deep red to orange naked head and the juvenile being of paler red. It has a black body with pale grey band at the base of flight feathers. The sexes differ in colour of the iris: males have a paler, whitish iris, while in females it is dark brown.

Habitat:

Seen at Madhav National Park, although wiki states: This gaudy-faced vulture was historically abundant, range widely across the Indian Subcontinent, and also eastwards to south-central and south-eastern Asia, extending from India to Singapore. Today the range of the Red-headed Vulture is localized primarily to northern India. It is usually in open country and in cultivated and semi-desert areas. It is also found in deciduous forests and foothills and river valleys. It is usually found up to an altitude of 3000m from sea level.

Notes:

The widespread use of the NSAID Diclofenac in veterinary medicine in India has caused its population to collapse in recent years, however. Diclofenac is a compound now known to be extremely poisonous to vultures. The population of this species has essentially halved every other year since the late 1990s, and what once was a plentiful species numbering in the hundreds of thousands has come dangerously close to extinction in less than two decades.