Sunday, 7 January 2024

30-12-2023 NGALA LODGE, GAMBIA - HOODED VULTURE (Necrosyrtes monachus)

A small, mostly brown vulture with a small, naked, pink head covered with velvety white flufflike feathers. The slender, drooping, black beak and blue eye-ring are visible at close quarters and diagnostic when seen. Young birds have gray facial skin and brown fluff on the back of the neck. In flight, note rounded tail and silvery flight feathers. Rare and declining but widespread in open country, forest edge, and towns. While scavenging it is easily displaced from carcasses by larger and more aggressive vultures.

Although Hooded Vultures have relatively small home ranges, they are widely distributed across Africa. It occurs in Senegal, Mauritania, Guinea-Bissau, The Gambia, Niger and Nigeria in West Africa; in East Africa it is found in Chad, Sudan, South Sudan, Ethiopia and Somalia; in southern Africa it has been recorded in northern Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and South Africa.


 

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