Rare Egyptian Vulture spotted in Aurangabad

Bird week being celebrated by Nisarg Mitra Mandal Aurangabad and Maharashtra PakshiMitra Sanghatana

Aurangabad:

The Nisarga Mitra Mandal Aurangabad and Maharashtra Pakshimitra Sanghatana are jointly celebrating the bird week 2022. Bird observation and e-Bird app training workshop was held on Tuesday at Gogababa Hill in the Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University. During birdwatching, bird watcher Kiran Pardeshi suddenly spotted a rare Egyptian vulture hovering in the sky over the hill.

Bird watcher and wildlife photographer Vilas Savde was able to capture a few pictures of this rare bird with his camera. Giving more information, Kishore Gathadi and Kiran Pardeshi said that the white vulture or Egyptian vulture is the only member of the genus Neophron species. It is found in Southern Europe, Africa and Asia. The size is similar to a kite bird. The length of fully grown male vultures is 47-52 cm while the length of females is 52-55.5 cm. Wing length is 2.7 times body length. The whole body is pale white in color. The head is yellow and has no feathers. The beak is yellow and the feathers useful for flying are black. The tail is wedge-shaped, the wings are long and pointed. Male and female are similar in appearance. These birds live alone or in pairs. Nagesh Deshpande, Mahendra Deshmukh, Vilas Sawde, Prakash Thakur of Nisarga Mitramandal took efforts for this activity. Bhimraj Satdive, Yogeshwari Pujari, Pragya Rana and other bird lovers were present.

Bird species recorded on E-Bird App

During observation various bird species like Gray Francolin, Spotted Dove, Greater Coucal, Indian Nightjar, Little Swift, Painted Stork, White-throated Kingfisher, Black Drongo, Bay-backed Shrike, Rufous Treepie Red-vented Bulbul, Jungle Babbler, Indian Robin, Baya Weaver and Bee-eater were recorded on the e-Bird app.