Birds

Life List

Home

Egyptian Vulture
or
White Scavenger Vulture

Neophron percnopterus

An Egyptian Vulture at the annual Magh Mela in Allahabad

In the last few years, a major decline in the vulture population of north-central India is reported - as much as 90% for the most common species: Whitebacked and Longbilled. The Egyptian Vulture, though common enough, was never found in the huge congregations that those two sometimes formed, and perhaps has escaped their fall as well. There is uncertainty about the reasons for this fall. See the following links:

I believe in Allahabad one could see a fair number of vultures, even the two now said to be in catastrophic decline. But in Bangalore I am yet to see a single vulture of any kind! In Mysore, I have seen large numbers of the Scavenger Vulture at a garbage dump (May 2000).