Griffon Vulture Webcam in Israel

[Marbzy]

14:01 Dad stops feeding the little one and turns around


14:02 What a coincidence!


14:02 The parents accompany the chick in tandem for 40 seconds

[Marbzy]

14:05 Mom serves the main course, presumably


14:06 No, Mom, don't stop!


14:07 Mom gets airborne

[Marbzy]

14:08 That's a surprise. Barely a minute after Mom's departure, the chick receives a visit from T53. The visit starts with a single violent jab at the chick's back, following which T53 is mainly occupied with him-/herself


14:09 The visitor is soon off to the left-hand section of the ledge and does not come back


15:42 Coping with the heat

[Marbzy]

17:15 The chick's mandibles are apart to handle the temperature (close to 35 degrees Celsius officially, but with no access to shade for several hours it must feel way hotter out there)


And that's the last I got to see of the chick at daytime.

23:21 Good night


Polly. Griffons are certainly sociable (YT videos taken at the Hai-Bar Carmel feeding station in northern Israel are a great illustration), but other members of this colony are not really on friendly terms with the chick - otherwise the parents (as long as they are near enough to see what's happening on the ledge) would not see it necessary to chase away visitors. Of course, I'm not always lucky enough to observe parental interventions and hardly ever able to document them, but there have been at least a few in the past week. I guess it's too early to talk about acceptance.

[Marbzy]

7 June

01:57 Sleeping on the floor, again


At 8 am and at 1 pm the camera is focused on the Egyptian vulture nest

13:02 The elder Egyptian chick is growing feathers


15:03 Here's the true protagonist and it looks as though (s)he has been presented with a new conundrum

[Marbzy]

15:05 It looks as though the chick is picking up food from the ground


15:07 Not all of the food can be seen


Unfortunately, I can't be completely certain that it's really food (what else though?). Assuming it is food, it would have been provided in all likelihood by a parent. This in turn would mean that the chick is being told that the days of beak-to-beak feeding are nearly over...

15:18 Heat is back

[Marbzy]

16:28 No, the griffon does not look too comfortable


17:08 There's got to be some griffon activity in chick's sight


17:09 The chick's grunting shrieks are occasionally reflected off the wall

[Marbzy]

17:11 From time to time the chick shakes his/her body as if another griffon were about to decend onto the ledge


17:31 But here is the only visit I witnessed today


17:32 Unlike the other day, the chick decides to ignore the Egyptian

[Marbzy]

17:33 Then the Egyptian ignores the chick and flies away - the chick's all alone again

[Marbzy]

18:18 The heat seems to have relented, but no changes are forecast for the coming week


18:54 Official daytime temperatures will creep up to 35 degrees


19:34 Nighttime temperatures will keep dropping to 15-20 degrees

[Marbzy]

20:47 The little griffon is staying up


23:28 The chick is 106 days old tonight


Good night!

[Marbzy]

8 June

01:45 Flat on the ground...


02:31 ... and then up again


08:37 The chick's chatting

[Marbzy]

08:39 Every now and then the griffon breaks briefly into the begging mode


But no one comes round for any chit-chat.

09:34 Stretching


09:38 Oh, here's the Egyptian!

[Marbzy]

09:38 The chick barely takes a step towards the smaller guy - there's no hostility or intimidation, but the Egyptian leaves anyway, and the chick is all alone again


10:39 What a handsome youngster!


11:11 Mom arrives and the kid goes bananas

[Marbzy]

11:12 Mom makes sure no foreign interference occurs


11:13 Some of the feeding takes place close to the ground


11:14 Some other bits of it - up on second floor (the dark matter between Mom's and chick's beak is food, indeed)

[Marbzy]

11:16 A mynah sneaks onto the ledge to eavesdrop on the exchanges between Mom and the chick


11:17 Mom says that the meal is over


11:18 Bye (for now)!

[Marbzy]

11:26 Has Mom's food inspired the little one to burn a few calories?


11:26 Stationary exercises now


11:29 The crop's not huge but it's nicely rounded

[Marbzy]

11:34 The chick comes down leaping (it takes just two-three jumps to get down here from the highest point of the ledge)


11:37 Going back up is a more demanding pursuit


11:37 One day I'm gonna surprise y'all

[Marbzy]

13:42 The heat's cutting edge is near


13:54 Friend or foe?


13:54 Dad delivers the goods

[Marbzy]

13:55 Dad's doing fine himself, but the feeding isn't long


13:56 Up in the air and he's gone


13:57 The chick picks up a few little chunks from the ground