Cardinal Points: Vultures in Love White-backed Vulture

Photos and editorial © Mark Seth Lender

Out on the open plane a hyena tugs at the remains of a wildebeest. A short distance away there are two griffon vultures, also on the ground. They take no interest in the hyena or in the carrion she is now dragging off with her. A gauge of the hyena’s desperation. She is in effortful possession of something even a vulture will not eat. In ten minutes it will be nearly dark. That’s how night comes on at the equator. Like a slammed door. The hyena keeps looking around, short sharp movements. Exposed like this her nervousness is justified. In the dark she may have some relief, from her fear, but not the hunger.

For the two griffon vultures, just the opposite. They are not distressed and they have no obvious intention of leaving. They should. Atop an acacia tree they would be out of harm’s way. Whatever keeps them on the ground and makes them stay, hunger isn’t it.

Something else. Something compelling.

One of the vultures stands on a small bare hummock that mounds up out of the closecropped grass. The other is just beside. He bends down, and takes something from the base of the mound with the tip of his beak. The vulture on her slight perch does the same:

Bend. Pick. Up again. Now him… Now her… Now both of them. Then:

Stropping brushing stroking each other with their beaks rapid, intent. Along the check. Down, between the shoulders. Burying their faces in the collar that forms a ruff about each other’s throat, rubbing something in –

- there it is. The thing that each has retrieved from the mound.

There. Inside her open mouth.

The creamy white body of termite, bounced against the hard palate, the black tongue lifting pressing crushing - he has one too and now does the same – and using their beaks like burnishing tools they spread the masticated stuff deep inside the many-layered coats of each other’s feathers.

And stop. And look into each other’s jet black eyes.

Their mouths open, barely, as if speaking, as if his voice only for her, hers meant only for him.

And start again: Combing roaming clutching. Necks entwined. Beaks touching. And touching. And touching…. The light fails. They never will. Vultures, in Love.

53

Field Note:

Vultures are a bird of least sympathy. Our animus an extension of our aversion to death as a fact of life. The vulture itself we find frankly ugly. The hairless head especially disturbing. Our aesthetic prefers fur (or feathers) with which we identify with their analogues in ourselves. The toupee even when it is obviously a toupee and of no color that occurs in nature, even though an artifact of vanity and an object of ridicule, is still preferable to no hair at all. Which is why hair, however false, is the choice of many, even those already in power whom you would think have no further need of the superficial vanities.

Understandable, that when it comes to vultures, their bald aspect also works against them.

So does the metaphor they have become.Someone is a Vulture if they are -

- Opportunistic - Unethical - Waiting on a relative to die - Not Nice.

Above all it is how vultures make their living that we find disturbing. Though there is nothing to fear from them as long as you are still breathing, the fact of the matter tends to recede when you see them in action.

Two days’ paddle past Namatusi Island, there was a narrow strip of sand tucked inconspicuously into the base of a cliff. A dead hippopotamus had washed ashore there and the white-backed vultures were already in full possession, all but covering the carcass. I do not recall any odor but I certainly remember the way it looked. More than anything I remember how it sounded, the vultures with their rasping laugh, their screams, their wings slapping. It was not the kind of thing you ever forget.

White-backed vultures are social to the point that they roost together, and despite their rancor when on carrion they do signal each other when they spot a dead animal. Their habit of circling is that signal and a very obvious one, which leads to the tautological conclusion that communal feeding is in effect consensual. It is also essential. Without vultures the environment rapidly deteriorates into a land of remnants and corpses. No one else does the job vultures do in quite the same way.

That said they are not exactly cuddly. So it was a surprise of major proportions to see two of them all alone and in such an affectionate display. Here’s what they were doing:

Termites inject formic acid when they bite, which is toxic to invading members of their own species and presumably to insect predators come to do them harm. The vultures were likely taking advantage of that toxicity, rubbing formic acid from the crushed termites between and at the base of their feathers to discourage parasites. This is called “Anting” and is well known in many species of birds, but two well-versed Africa hands I spoke to while in Kenya (one of whom was an ornithologist) had never heard of nor seen anting in vultures and I could not find any references to it in the literature. Compounding the import of the observation, it was mutual anting – a form of what is called allopreening. The literature on anting makes no mention of allopreening as part of anting behavior. However, allopreening is a major part of courtship ritual in many species of bird. From which the presumption of the title used here.

This might be the first report to identify what theses white-backed vultures were doing for what it was, but I doubt I was the first to see it. Our preconceptions often blind us when it comes to wildlife.

Vultures in love? What else? And why not.

Mark Seth Lender is a producer for wildlife content at Living on Earth ( LOE.org ), the only program on US Public Radio exclusively dedicated to wildlife and environmental reporting.