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A narrative podcast from two bird lovers (and friends) exploring all things bird.
Great.
I'm Hannah.
And I'm Cleo.
And you're listening to Birds on Birds.
Hey, everybody and welcome back to Birds on Birds, the Ornithological Odyssey podcast, where we take you on our bird learning adventures, where we are back this week with a brand new episode for you, a deep dive into one of my favorite bird subsets, which is Vultures.
I can't believe we haven't done one till now.
I think I've been specifically waiting for my birthday week.
And I kind of jokingly at one point told Hannah that I wanted to start doing vultures every year for my birthday and then was like, wait, how many vulture species are there?
What if I there's not enough?
And there were 26 and I was like, great.
Well, if I do one a year, we'll have 26 years worth of vultures.
And I think, I think we'll probably be fine.
I think that will be totally fine.
So, um, so this is my 1st time doing one and I am I'm just really excited to get into it.
I really love vultures.
I actually have a weird core memory of my 5th grade teacher, who is still sort of part of my life because my mom worked at the school and they're friends and they see each other and I babysat for her once I got old enough to make that appropriate.
Oh, cute.
She told everybody that her favorite animal was a vulture because they cleaned up after like, you know, the carcasses and all that stuff.
And so I have this like weird core memory of her saying that.
And I saw her not that long ago when I was visiting for my mom's birthday and I meant to bring that up to her, but I will have to tell my mom and get her on the line and talk to her and be like, do you remember saying that?
And is this still your favorite bird?
But I love vultures.
I'm a huge fan.
The Vultures episode of Ologies kind of changed my life.
So if you have...
I remember you freaking out about the like antiseptic. Which apparently is not, I don't know if that's all vultures.
I didn't add that to my notes because it didn't come up.
But you should go, listen to that episode if you don't know what I'm talking about.
And it's incredible.
She talks to a vulture scientist.
It's just, it's, yeah, they really radicalized me.
I'm very vulture pilled, if you will.
And so today, we're going to talk through the Rupel's Griffin Vulture.
Okay.
And that's Ruples spelled RU with the 2 dots over the top.
Yeah, PP, I believe.
E-L-L. It's called a what?
An Uma?
Umlot.
Umlot.
Let me look that up, though.
I did figure out how to add that to my.
Yeah, umlat is a diacritical mark consisting of 2 small dots placed over a vowel.
Wow, incredible.
That's an English major for you right there, kids.
It's about another language, but yeah.
Oh, yeah, that's a good point.
I did figure out how to make my American keyboard make that.
So that was fun.
It took me a long time to understand what I needed to do to make that little symbol show up, but I figured it out.
So that's fun.
This bird is sometimes just called the Ruple's Vulture or the Ruple's Griffin.
I tried to find the difference between Griffin and vultures, but it seems like, generally speaking, all griffins are vultures, but not all vultures are griffins.
So kind of like the whole rectangle square thing.
Right.
All squares are rectangles or all rectangle. Yeah that would make more sense.
It's also like, I was going to say the cactus and succulent thing.
Oh, which is like, I think it's all all succulents.
No, all cactus are succulents, but not all succulents are cactus.
Yes.
That sounds right.
That's the rule.
That sounds right.
So kind of just like a subset.
Scientific name is gyps repelli, I believe.
It's spelled G-Y-PS.
I couldn't think of any other way to say that.
Geeps.
I think gips, gips.
That's what we'll say for now.
And if you want to correct me, I won't be upset.
Yeah, do it.
It's size.
These are pretty big birds.
Yeah.
They're really, they're pretty big.
They're not the biggest vulture, but they're pretty big.
They are 85 to 103 centimeters, which is 33 to 41 inches.
That's about 3 feet long to tip.
So bigger than the snowy egret, which is what we did last week by about a foot.
Wow.
So quite quite big.
Their weight is 6.4 to 9 kilograms, which is about 15 to 20 pounds.
Damn.
A big bird.
Yeah, I think vultures.. 20 to 50 pounds.
Sorry.
Oh, sorry. 15 to 20.
Not 20 to 50.
That would be a huge bird, a very heavy bird.
I do think I'll sometimes 15 sounds like 50.
Yeah, 50 to 20.
I like to go backwards just to confuse people.
Just for fun.
Sorry.
No, you're fine.
So 15, 15 to 20 pounds.
Still pretty heavy though for a bird.
Definitely.
Their wingspan is 2.26 to 2.6 meters, which is about 7.4 to 8.5 feet.
That is taller than most basketball players.
It's very tall.
It's a lot of wingspan.
Their lifespan is about 40 to 50 years.
There isn't a ton of data on captivity versus in the wild, but that's like kind of their general expectancy.
Okay.
So compared to some of the other vulture species, I think these are actually quite handsome.
I think it's because they don't really have as much like showing skin as maybe some.
They're just naked.
Less naked from the neck up. Vultures, yeah.
I still think that, you know, those ones are cool in their own right and very metal, but these are more, um, maybe more digestible for most of the population.
You would see one and you wouldn't be like, what kind of bird is that?
You know what I mean?
You'd just be like, 0 shit, that's a cool bird.
They have this very big bill that has sort of an orange tone with like a gray tip.
It's very big It's a real strong beak.
I mean, you think that they're going to be like grabbing pieces of meat and being able to tear it off so they need to be quite strong and quite big.
They've got big yellow eyes.
Their head has this kind of like dusting of feathers that can really range depending on location or subspecies.
It's typically like a dark to light brown.
Okay. Color, like a dusty color, but it can get darker to like down into their like pinkish neck area.
So they do have that kind of like pink skin showing, but it's really only on the neck kind of down almost where like the neck ends and it starts to go into the body area and that's really the only like, I think what people would typically associate with like a vulture head.
That's kind of the only spot where that's showing.
No, and when Cleos has like a dusting of feathers, it's not like they have like scattered feathers.
Oh, yeah, that's like, it's like, it looks like, almost like natal down.
It looks very downy, very fuzzy, almost like a buzz cut.
Yes, very much.
Exactly like a buzz cut.
That's a really, that's a great way to describe that.
It looks like a buzz cut.
If birds could get a buzz cut.
I don't think they can.
Very soft and fuzzy.
That's what it looks like.
100%.
You nailed it.
But really, though, because I was trying to think of how to describe that. It's hard if you don't see it.
And it's definitely not sporadic.
It looks like a buzz cut.
Exactly.
Their feathers are also a contrast of dark brown with like white tip areas and it's described as like a scaly appearance.
So because of how they're set up.
It looks like the scales on a reptile versus like.
I mean, it's still feathers, obviously, but the pattern itself looks like that.
And if you're looking right now too, if you see a picture of them from underneath flying with a giant wings open.
They have that scaly brown and white appearance on the chest and down into the body, but they also have this really cool stripe area that kind of is like kind of where the collarbones, I guess, would be into the wing that is just like this big, broad white stripe that extends out into like the collarbone and into the wing area, but only from underneath.
It just looks really striking when you see them from underneath looking up.
And because their wings are so long, it just feels like really dramatic.
And then the entire outline of like the bottom of the wing area down into like the bottom of the body, if you're looking upward, is like the dark feathers, like a really thick band of the dark feathers.
And so it just looks like this really cool contrasted outline.
They're very striking to look at.
They are massive.
They do also have that signature like fur collar looking area.
Yes.
It really is though.
Yes.
And I do think that this is really associated with vultures, even though I don't know that this is actually like incredibly common in a lot of vulture species, like when you think of just like your general, what are the ones that are from around here, why am I blanking on the news?
Turkey vultures.
Yes, thank you.
Turkey vultures.
They don't really have that.
But when you think of like a cartoon vulture.
I'm specifically thinking of jungle.
Jungle Book.
Yep.
Exactly.
They have that like big fur collar area that kind of sits around and these have that.
Yes.
They do.
And it really looked like the Jungle Book to me.
Yes, a lot of vultures that I have seen, like turkey vultures, California condors, they don't have that fur looking accent.
It really does.
It looks like a boa or a boa.
And it's like creamy white.
It's really cute.
And because they have that like dusty upper area, like too.
They also, it just like it's, it's, it's, they, like I said, they're kind of handsome, you know?
Oh, and males and females look the same.
So that's my apologies for not mentioning that earlier, but so I know we've talked before about like raptors.
Females are bigger, actually.
There was no information on that.
I guess they're probably the same size then.
Yeah, I couldn't find anything.
And I will say, like, again, we're kind of hitting on another species where this is a African species.
There are some, they show up, I'll talk about that a little in location.
They are in this like specific belt. Of Africa, but they also show up in certain parts of Europe, but they are not extremely studied.
So there's not a ton of information on even birds of the world and like when I was trying to look around for stuff about these birds.
It was not super easy to find.
Like, I feel like the snowy egret, what we just did, there were like, quite possibly 50 paragraphs worth of information on birds of the world.
This one had like one single page with every subsection had maybe a paragraph underneath it.
It was much shorter.
I would say maybe a 3rd of the information of the snowy egret, which is sad because, you know, we'll get into this later.
So again, I do think that's partially funding and also just access to information, research, scientists not being as recognized in different parts of the world, people who are like, you know, that kind of stuff. Basic colonialism bullshit.
Um, but still, I did my best to try to find as much as I could, and I didn't see anything about size variants.
The juveniles are pretty similar, but they have black bills.
They're a bit paler in color in general, and they have really long streaked plumage instead of that like modeled scaly look.
They have like streaks down their body.
But it's not quite as contrasty either.
Okay.
So just kind of like a more muted, probably, to blend in.
We'll learn later with like cliff facings.
Like they would look very streaky kind of like the rocks.
Okay.
There are 2 subspecies, but they mostly vary in like coloring and one is slightly smaller and this is just like geographical locations.
So nothing that's like too crazy to call out there.
The sound description is terrifying.
So they are mostly silent birds.
But when they do make sounds, they have one sound that is like this really cute chittering sounds that kind of sounds like the intro beats to crank it by Slater, which I will play for you here.
Crank it.
Tell me that doesn't sound like that.
It does.
But the other sound they make is quite possibly one of the scariest sounds I've ever heard, it was like Jurassic Park levels of like a screech that was just like kind of terrifying.
I was like, uh, okay.
Most of the time they're making these sounds like the chittering sounds are mostly in like relation to like mating or like kind of having each other.
Yeah.
And then the larger sounds they make are more for like defensive territory or defense of a carcass.
So they want to be scary.
Yes, exactly.
So I'll play that other sound for you here.
So that one is terrifying.
But like I said, they mostly are silent and they really only make sounds at carcasses or in defense or in dominance.
Okay.
They do not migrate.
And they are typically found in like kind of a belt shape if you were to look at the map on birds of the world.
It's literally like a straight across line, across Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia, Sudan, Chad, Niger, Nigeria, Ghana, Mali, Burkinofaso, and then Guinea.
And then they are also seen via Ebert data in Spain, Portugal, Barcelona, and south of France.
So that, I know they like cross the Mediterranean Sea or whatever, and they end up in, yeah, but they're not migratory.
So it's quite interesting that they're ending up in that area.
But we will talk a little bit about this later, but they've been known to fly quite far distances just for food, but they're not migrating.
Okay. Which is like a 2 very different things.
They typically live in open grassland or arid steppe, new word alert areas, which is basically a dry grassland that only receives like a very specific amount of rain per year.
It's too wet to be a true desert, but too dry to be a grassland or a forest.
Interesting.
So arid step.
That's fun.
And then they also seem to gravitate to areas with another new word alert or a graphic lift.
Which is basically where there is a bunch of open space and then a steep cliff that causes like wind and gusts to swoop up dramatically.
So think of, what is that called?
Like dinosaur Ridge out in Colorado. Where it's like flat, flat, flat, flat, flat. And suddenly there's like these big, like the Morrison area.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's basically just think big flat areas with like very steep rock facings right up against them.
Cool.
And so while they don't migrate, they have been known to fly very far for food, but they always come back.
So records have shown them flying 7 hours without landing in search of food.
What the?
Yeah.
So they can go there.
What are they?
Well, they're eating carry-on.
Okay.
You know?
And let me let me go ahead and go down to my food section because I think that that is important and we're kind of hitting on we're hitting on that now.
So they do eat carry-on, 100%.
Sometimes smaller bone fragments within that, but that's mostly like if it's already kind of attached to the meat.
They're not really chewing off bone.
But they're not like a bone vulture.
No.
And it's mostly soft tissue organs and muscle.
They're typically found feeding on carcasses in groups with other rappels vultures, but other vultures will often be present as well, and then there will be like fights for dominance in that space because it depends on kind of the largeness, but because the rappels vulture is also like a group animal, they're also more likely to like come and bring along their friends.
So if they have more.
And by bringing along their friends, I mean other that they live with and around.
I don't know if they're actually friends, but, you know.
So because they only eat dead things.
They have to look for things that are already dead because they're not killing prey.
They're attracted to like the actual, like, they use their eyes to search for a carry-on.
And then once they find it, then they can alert to others.
But if there's not actual carry on around, then you have to go looking for it.
And honestly, you kind of have to be the 1st to the dead too, right?
Because there are other things that are trying to get to dead animals that also feed on carry-on.
It's not just vultures.
So it's it's this very interesting like interplay of like getting there within a certain amount of time when something's already dead and has already been killed, but also being, you know, there before other things who need to eat it or want to eat it, get there.
Their mating habits are quite interesting and just to kind of show how little information we can find on birds of the world under sexual behavior.
There's legitimately just a photo of 2 birds getting it on.
There's genuinely.
It's no details, no words.
It's just a photo of one on top of the other one.
And that's the only information that's on there.
Oh my god, you're right.
They are considered monogamous.
And they do stay together, um, not just seasonally, but like mate for life.
So that's really fun. Love that.
I know.
I'm like, vultures?
Cute.
Don't let them talk bad about you.
I love you.
They do typically breed at the end of rainy season, so young can fledge at the end of dry season when carry-on is most abundant.
I don't know why carry-on is most abundant at that time, so don't ask me, but I do think that's interesting.
So they, it says they typically breed at the end of rainy season.
So when the young fledge at the end of dry season, wet season, when carry on is most abundant.
So I guess dry season is when I have no clue why that would be.
Well, at least here, I think we have more carry-on at the end of spring summer because the babies that were born.
So like for my area, there's a bunch of prairie dogs that are become carry-on because they are babies and they're dumb and they cross the road.
And by dumb, I mean, we're old enough to know better.
But yeah.
So they get hit by a car and then they are carry on.
So maybe it's something like that where it's like the babies can't survive, so they have more. That is true.
Like, that a lot of the times, like, if we're thinking Africa specifically too.
Like the larger mammals and ungulates and stuff, a lot of the times they will attack like larger predators will attack young or sick because they're easier to get to and they're easier to kill and it's less energy expenditure.
So that would make sense if that tied together.
They do breed in colonies, which I didn't know and feels potentially unique.
This is my 1st vulture I've researched, even though I love them.
And so these colonies could be 10 pairs or they could be 1000 pairs per college.
God damn it.
Which is a lot of pairs.
That's 2000 birds if you can do math that fast, 2 times a thousand.
It's 2000. Before we started one of these episodes.
I was getting Hannah ready and I didn't tell her I was just going to ask her a bunch of math questions.
So I was like, what's 2 plus two?
What's 2 times this.
Okay, what's 87 times 3?
And she did a great job, actually.
She got it right.
She questions herself for a second, but she got there.
The 2000 took me too long.
It was fun.
They nest at Cliffs and Gorges, really, really, very much into the rocks.
Like if you were to see it, it's it's Jeffrey Lindrum's paradise.
I mean, they're right on the end of Glory.
It's just a platform nest of sticks that's constructed by both sexes and is usually lined with grass or other leaves and specifically calls out that it often has materials stolen from other nests.
That's fun.
There is a note that some nest can be used for up to 20 years. Which is incredibly cool.
They only lay one egg at a time and one per breeding season, which I had a hard time trying to figure out what they were trying to say here, but it said their breeding season lasts 13 months, but it doesn't say if, like, every, like, if it's like an off season or if it's like during that time they have 13 months to have one young, and so it's every 13 months, there's potential because they don't really have like a breeding season.
Sounds similar to the albatross.
And I wonder if it's kind of like they just don't.
Like you have one and they do take a while to like fledge and leave the nest and all that stuff.
So I wonder if it's just based on like how often they're having the young, um, and when they are able to.
I don't totally know.
And every 13 months felt specific because I was like, that's technically over a year and I'm confused.
So I'm not sure if that means that they do that or not.
There is a singular record of 2 eggs, but they think it's possible that it was 2 females laying an egg in the same nest, which we have seen before.
That's something that we've talked about.
The eggs are like a greenish, bluish white.
They also sometimes have brown spots.
I saw some that were like, it's interesting.
Some of them like varies.
So when you see the eggs, you'll have like white ones that have brown spots and they're pretty, I would say, like true white or like a creamy white, and then you have these ones that almost look like robin's egg blue, but really dialed down.
Like don't think like bright, but like same color family, but like really, really like water that down quite a bit.
And that's kind of the color we have.
It's like a creamy, greenish blue.
Okay, color.
Okay.
Both sex is incubate and it takes 55 days to hatch.
That's almost 2 months.
And 110 days to fledge.
So it's a lot to care for here.
That makes sense with the timeline you were talking about.
They're very involved parents, for sure.
There is a note as well that their incubation seems to be fairly successful with an 82% hatch rate if there's an egg that actually is, you know, laid.
So that's cool.
That feels really high.
It feels really high. What we've talked about.
Especially considering that they're only having them once every one. One years question mark.
Whatever that means.
You know, it's interesting, I think, I'm just now thinking about this, but it's interesting that we're trying to like push these birds into like the years that we exist in. Time is different for me.
When to them, they're just like, well, I just have a baby every, like, certain amount of time.
But like to the, it's just not, they don't know years.
They're not like, that doesn't make sense, you know?
For me, that's one.. 12 years or something, but to them they're just like, yeah, I'm ready to have another baby.
I don't know They also don't really know when they reach sexual maturity.
Oh, they don't really have like details on that.
Like I said, this is kind of a, I wouldn't say it's an under research bird.
But if you were someone who was looking into doing bird research, this would be a good place to put your energy because there's a lot of information missing.
Yeah, we don't know really much about like courtship or a lot of the things that have to do with all of that surrounding their whole lives, really.
We're missing a lot of details here.
Yeah.
I already did diets.
So I'm going to skip down to our conservation status, which unfortunately here is critically endangered.
I believe this is one of our 1st that are critically endangered.
I think it is our first.
I think it's our first.
I think we've had some that are like near threatened or have been on the watch and came back.
Right.
Unfortunately, these ones are, they're not doing well.
So they were once locally abundant, but were recognized as threatened in 2007 and upgraded to critically endangered in 2015.
So in just 8 years, the population has really taken a tumble.
And that was after they kind of realized.
Unfortunately, there's a lot working against them.
One is just, you know, our typical everyday habitat loss due to development, it's grasslands on the sides of mountains.
Once again, the loss of wild ungulants and therefore carry on to eat.
So when you think about, um, like Africa and a lot of the reason that a lot of people from the West and or like, let's say the global North, go to visit Africa is because you can do large game hunting, um, and a lot of that is technically sanctioned, some of it is not, um, and it is definitely, in some places, they're doing a really good job managing the resources by having these large game kind of that feel like open areas that you're hunting in, but actually it's like a preserve specifically that exists for that.
And in some places, it's not managed quite as well.
And because of that, there's just less ungulates around to eat, which is a problem for the whole ecosystem, but moves its way up to vultures.
What is an ungulate?
Ungulates is like anything that has like hooves, I believe. Like big goats.
No, I don't think rhinos are considered ungulates.
I mean, they could be.
Let's pause here for some Googling.
Okay, so it turns out that rhinos are ungulates, so that's on me for not knowing that.
I just assumed that rhinos were something else entirely.
Well, and their feet don't quite look like how we would imagine.
They're also fucking massive.
When I think ungulate, I think more like, uh, antelope, you know, bighorn sheep, I believe, are also considered ungulates, like things like that.
So that's like common prey item, things that live in like herds when you're thinking about like the lion king, the wildebeest.
I believe those are considered ungulates as well.
So just the loss of those in general are not great.
And then to kind of continue on a similar road there.
Poisoning from an anti-inflammatory drug that is used in livestock and ungulates that are in livestock called dichlofenec was fatal and is fatal to repels griffins if they eat the carry-ons of the ugliets that are treated with it.
So in farming situations.
These are ensids, which is a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory that is being given to these animals that are being farmed specifically.
And when they die, if they have that in their system and the vultures get to them, it is unfortunately fatal to the vultures, which is a big deal because a lot of the times this is this is a big food source for them and it is not like, it seems like there is no amount that would be safe for them.
Unfortunately, this is a drug that is still available and being used.
It is being discouraged and they're working towards trying to get it banned, but so far it's still around.
There is some belief-based trade as well for vulture body parts, for good luck charms and, um, Yeah, yeah, this is not this is not the coolest thing in the world.
But basically they are, in this case, intentionally poisoned.
And in an article I read all about birds, They said that in certain parts of southern and West Africa, some groups believe that having vulture body parts gives you a sort of clairvoyance, they can be eaten for meat as well, but typically people want the head, bleeding it will quote unquote, improve success in business, raise the IQ of children, cure a variety of illnesses and generally bring good luck and ward off evil.
So I, there are some pictures of it on the article I have it linked in the sources.
So just a heads up.
They are kind of like mummified heads.
It's not like super graphic, but it's still upsetting.
So something to consider there.
Individuals are also commonly sold in markets, and people will climb cliffs to go get eggs.
They are possibly instinct in Nigeria, do entirely to the trade of vultures like live vultures as pets, which seems to be most popular in West and Central Africa, but internationally, there's also a market as well.
So for example, in 2005, Italian authorities confiscated 30 repel vulture eggs.
What?
Yeah, so it's pretty weird, pretty interesting.
And I tried to Google a lot about why you would want to own a vulture or wear or like what the point would be because we know about like the falcon trade and like the illegal bird trade.
And some of that makes sense because, but I don't know that vultures are like, I just never saw them as like something that maybe people would want as a pet.
I would want one like as a video game character. As a pet, because that sounds fucking badass.
But, I can't imagine, I don't know.
I don't really know.
It was hard to find info.
Hawks Aloft that we met at, yes, the Sandhill Crane Festival.
There was a turkey vulture that had been rescued because it had imprinted on a human.
Yes, you're right.
He had wanted to keep it as a pet.
And then he couldn't handle it.
Yeah, you're 100% correct.
I think I just assume people are looking for birds that are like parrot species that can talk to them or like, but I guess.
Yeah, I guess there's some kind of like status symbol in having a vulture similar to like owning a tiger or something like that.
You know, it's like, do you need one?
No, but it gives you this like sense of power. Don't really know. Like it.
Yeah.
Another thing that is happening is that there's also disturbance from climbers in certain regions.
So when they're climbing gear, they cause scarring in cliff faces and they also scare the birds usually during birding breeding season when the expeditions are most popular.
So that can be pretty shitty.
And then, like I said, based on what I could tell, it's not legal to own these vultures anywhere.
I Googled it.
I was like, is it legal in Africa?
Is it legal in Europe?
Is it legal?
And every single thing, it said, no, no, no.
And they are a protected species.
But I ran across a website that was selling eggs for $100.
What?
So I don't really know.
And I tried to go to checkout.
No, yeah.
And I tried to go to checkout just to see like, I put in my address to see if it was gonna like flag it and be like, you're not allowed to have this here.
So I have no idea if that website is a scam. Or if it is like specifically for conservation and breeding programs, but it didn't ask me for any information.
I was like, this is so weird.
So I haven't totally figured out what's happening. But it did make me sad.
Yeah.
I also, sorry to keep it in the sad zone.
It's my birthday.
I'll cry if I want to.
I also found out that vultures are the most threatened group of raptors in the world, which is rough.
But on the bright side, there are a lot of groups, including the Peregrine Fun, which we highlighted in the Peregrine Falcon episode, that are working to provide education for communities, on the dangers of poison and how to have more secure livestock corrals called bomas, without using like needs of, you know, needing to, basically the bomas create a more secure fencing area for farming that causes their livestock to be more secure so that they are, they don't have to result to like poison to try to keep them safe because a lot of the times we have these groups of people who rely on it for food and for money and trade or whatever it is that they, it's their job.
So protecting their flock or their herd, flock, herd, whatever, is the most important thing.
And they, these people who do the bomas trading, they, they do a two-part training and one is the actual building of the corrals, how to fix them, how to make sure that you have them safe, but the 2nd is also about poisoning training and how you can make sure that you don't do poison and like what the effects of poison and using like certain drugs on animals in the environment and the ripple effects that it can cause.
So it's always 2 parts.
Wow.
Which is honestly really great.
So conservationists are hopeful for the return of vulture populations in Africa, but understand that due to their ability to travel very, very long distances for food.
Sometimes you have to work across country borders, and that can make it even more difficult dealing with severed different types of governmental authorities and different types of populations, different levels of development all at once, and that can make this like a much more challenging bird to try to protect.
Wow.
So that is most of the information I have, but I do have a couple fun facts.
So I want to start with the most interesting one, which is that the Ruples Griffin is the highest flying bird in the world.
What?
Yes.
So I saved that because I wanted to tell you that at the end, reaching up to over 36,000 feet, 11 k meters above sea level.
And I'm going to blow your mind even further. Sad notes, sad note, trigger warning.
The way they accidentally figured this out is because one was sucked into an airplane engine.
Yeah. 36,000 feet.
I mean, I have heard that that can occasionally happen for these birds that get up real high or that they get hit by planes.
This one holds the record, though.
That is wild.
It's really fascinating.
So they can fly this high by riding basically thermal air currents to get higher in the heights without using a ton of energy, but they also have this really unique hemoglobin adaptation that other high flying birds also have that helps them use their oxygen more efficiently in their bloodstream to be able to fly like where oxygen is less prevalent, i.e. Really high up in the sky.
So that's really cool.
They're like little astronauts.
Yeah, my little astronauts.
They were also named after the scientist in 1800s German biologist Eduard Rupel, who has at least 8 birds named after him and many other species.
I believe I'm going to do a deep dive on him someday.
I haven't looked far enough into him to know if he's worth that, but it seemed like he was a conservationist or at least a scientist, early scientist.
And he has so many birds named after him and so many other animals, so it seems like something to go into.
And then the last fun fact is that my actual birthday is on international vulture awareness day.
There we go.
Sleigh.
So I am going to do a vulture episode ideally every year on my birthday, but I also am going to give a little bit of money to a vulture protected fund every year for my birthday.
I would like to invite other people to do that as well if they feel up to it.
So this year I'm going to give to the Vulture Conservation Foundation in honor of the highest flying motherfucker in the land, the Ruples Vulture.
And that is the information I have before I move to who I think this bird is, which I think will really surprise you.
Oh boy.
And I'm excited to tell you.
Oh, I can't wait.
You said something a minute ago where it made me think like, oh, do vultures have like a group name?
You know, how, so, yeah, have, like, whole group names?
They're called a committee if they're...
Yeah.
A vulture committee, if they're like resting, roosting, perching together.
However, if they are circling and soaring together in flight on their warm air currents, which Cleo was just talking about, then it's called a kettle.
So it's kind of like they're like, wow, they're boiling and circling together, like a little.. A little.. Kettle.
If I ever write a book, I'm Kettle.
And then the last grouping is if they're gathered together on the ground to feed on a carcass, it is called a wig?
Awake.
Oh, awake.
Oh, awake is cool. The animal is dead.
That's cool.
Yeah.
I like that.
Very, very cool in metal.
But yeah, I just wanted to add that.
That's awesome.
I am so appreciative of that.
And it's something we need to add to our notes to make sure we check into.
Because, like, sometimes it's super boring. Or or something, but which we love.
Other times it's very fun.
Like a flamboyance for flamingos.
Absolutely.
Okay.
So for pop culture.
So I 1st started and I was like, who owns a private jet?
Because I was like, these birds fly high as fuck.
Oh, so let's see.
Okay.
Taylor Swift.
Everyone who owns a private jet hate.
Sorry.
I was like, ooh, all of you suck.
I don't think you deserve this.
You usually are billionaires.
Yeah.
And that's fine. Whatever.
And honestly, like naming your plane.
I'm not sure how I feel about that.
It makes me feel worse about it.
Like, naming your boat, chic.
Naming your plane, gauche.
I don't know.
Maybe I'm just mad because I'll never have enough money to own my own plate.
No, it feels weird.
I don't know that I would if I had enough money.
Anyway, anyway, I'm getting off topic.
So I am choosing Mackenzie Scott, who I know you maybe don't know off the bat.
Do you?
Okay, let me tell you then.
Mackenzie Scott is a philanthropist and a novelist who has given over $26 billion to more than 2500 nonprofits, and she is also Jeff Bezos's ex-wife.
Oh, that's how I know her.
She's an absolute fucking icon.
And to me, I kind of picked her because I was like, she's kind of like feeding off the corpse of their divorce and giving back to the environment and I feel like vultures are the reason that like, we don't have the spread of disease and we don't have the spread of like all this shitty bullshit and because she didn't have that fucking prenup baby.
She got half of everything in the divorce and she pledged to give most of her wealth back to the world.
And I think that vultures are, they seem like these like, I think they're seen as like dirty animals, but truthfully, like we have slower, without vultures, we end up having like slower decomposition of carcasses, and with that causes more spreading of disease.
They are truly like a vital part of the ecosystem and are just like genuinely fucking cool birds who give back by existing and like doing the thing that nobody else wants to do.
And so, yeah, I chose Mackenzie Scott because I, to me, vultures are the like secret philanthropists of the world.
How do you feel about that?
That is fascinating.
I love that.
I never saw that coming.
I never saw that direction, but I really like it.
And I just feel like she's really feeding off the corpse of that divorce, but then she's also giving back with it.
She's like, I don't need 26000000000 fucking dollars.
I'm going to give to nonprofits.
And she specifically gives to nonprofits for things that like he's against, which I think is so cunty in the best way.
I really think she's like, she's so sick.
She also just wrote her a recent, I don't know if this was just or if this was the last couple years.
She wrote another novel.
She published it for free on substack because a bitch just does not need money.
Damn.
So, and I feel like a lot of people who are put in those positions don't do what she does where they like turn around and give back.
They spend it all.
They like are petty in ways that are like bad for the world to get back.
And she was like, no, I'm going to do good.
Yep.
I'm gonna do good with what you've given me.
And with like probably the shitty way he treated her, the corpse, I'll say it again, the corpse of their divorce and is like slowing the rate of decomposition of the world by funding the things that like matter.
I really love that.
Do you have any other ideas?
I was also trying to think of people with like fur coats or like, I don't know.
I just couldn't come up with.
I also looked up other philanthropists, but like Bill Gates, I was like, mm, I think he was like briefly in coalition with Epstein, it hasn't been confirmed or denied because they won't release the fucking files.
Like, I was like, I don't feel comfortable with that.
These are my babies.
I want to pick someone cool.
So this is where I got.
I will say, looking, I looked up Mackenzie Scott because I want to see if I, like, recognized her anything, she is more well known for her.
Like, her face does look vaguely familiar, but I think she might just have a face that looks like some other women.
But she just looks like a person.
Yeah, she looks very like an average person.
Um, beautiful, I would say.
No, yeah, like a in a nice way.
Right.
Like a very commonly attractive person.
I will say the photos of her with Jeff, but prior to their divorce, he doesn't not look like a vulture.
I think he's like a vulture in a bad way.
Right, right.
Like he looks like the character, the caricature version of vultures that we see.
The evil misunderstood side, but she is like, the Mackenzie Scott is like the soul of a vulture where she's like the actual doing good doing the hard work and like being a good person in the world.
I think that's totally fair.
No, he has like a hook nose.
It's too big for his face and then he's bald and has like no hair in sight.
That feels a little bit caricature vulture.
Yeah.
No, I don't have any thing to compete with that.
I truly don't.
I also just found a quote from a 2026.
Actually, this just came out.
Sorry, like a month ago, June 29th from Forbes.
Elon Musk on Mackenzie Scott giving away 26000000000 of her fortune, his quote, sadly, it makes the world a worse place.
And on that, I'll say, that's the exact proof we needed that Mackenzie Scott is probably a good person.
Yeah.
Because if Elon Musk hates you, you must be doing good.
Right.
Yeah.
I'm just like, god damn, man.
So with that, stop scrolling, fly fucking high as hell.
Yeah. Get real high.
Yeah, get and with that, get high.
And if you happen to get a fortune, maybe think about what you could do with it to make an impact rather than buy a cool outfit or whatever the fuck Lauren Sanchez does with her life because for real, she's his current wife who he did cheat on very publicly.
Yeah, not surprising.
Yeah, and stop doom scrolling.
And maybe for my birthday, you can give some money into the vulture conservation society.
I forget if that, is that the name that I said?
So sorry.
I have it listed in my notes.
The name is Vulture Conservation Foundation, not society, in honor of the highest.
I should have done someone who gets high all the time.
We'll get there later.
I mean, but do they get high all the time?
Yeah, or do they like fly high?
Yeah, yeah.
And I just feel like they fly.
They don't seem like a stoneer.
No, they're like a big one. There'll be a bird.
Big ball or not a big stoner.
That's what I'm feeling.
Although they fly. Well, yeah.
No, we'll go through that later.
So yeah, maybe give some money if you have it.
And if not, in honor of my birthday, tell someone you know a fun fact about the RuPaul's vulture that you learned in an inappropriate time. Perfect. As I would do.
Either is accepted as gift anytime.
Yep.
And until next time.
Stay cool, bird boy.