Early yesterday evening my son discovered a very large bird sitting on the roof of our villa. When it tried to get airborne it could not launch itself up and fell off the roof , hanging across two beams above a first floor terrace before dropping on to the terrace. We phoned our vet who gave us a number but this turned out to be the GNR who advised to phone 118. As it was getting late I put out some water out for the bird and left it.

In the morning the bird was perched on the terrace wall. I identified it as a griffin vulture. 118 could not help and so we tried Zoomarine. They gave us another number and after a couple of further calls we found someone who said that they would come and look at the bird. Shortly afterwards a GNR jeep turned up and the two officers took a net out of the back of the jeep. When they tried to snare the bird it fell on to a lower roof and then flew up to the roof of a neighbouring villa where it is still sitting in the rain.

The GNR officers were from a branch called SEPA who have responsabilty for a range of environmental issues. One of the officers spoke excellent English and explained that the bird was very heavy and needed warm air to fly. In the cold damp air it could simply not achieve effective flight. It was on its way to Africa and had been grounded by the change in the weather. The two GNR officers were courteous, knowledgeable and very helpful. They were extremely good ambassadors for a force which sometimes gets a bad press.

In view of the weather forecast the bird may be grounded for a while but hopefully it will be able to keep its strength up and eventually continue on its journey south.

It's good to hear a positive comment about the GNR. I do hope the vulture is airborne soon. Do you have any pictures?

Presumably the officers were from the flying squad?

Fascinating this, quite often see eagles flying around on the road from Sesmarias to Ferragudo. Be interested to know the outcome if you can. Well worth posting (Wasn't Pato rehearsing for his part in Mother Goose by any chance!)

There are pictures of the bird and I will see if I can work out how to post them tomorrow. The rain has been torrential at times today and the bird has remained perched on the roof of the nearby villa hunched up against the wind and the rain. When the rain has stopped it has preened itself a bit. I do not know much about these birds but they must be able to land in normal times because they mainly eat carrion. I presume that they can go a while without eating so I am optomistic that all will turn out well in the end.

To extend the scope for those who cannot resist a witty remark I should mention that one of the GNR officers was female. Over to you!

This time last year when playing golf at Silves we say large flocks of these flying s west on their way from Spain to N Africa.

A very impressive site,

Might it be worth checking some birders forums to see if anyone can recommend feeding it or something?

Mike,Chislehurst wrote:Fascinating this, quite often see eagles flying around on the road from Sesmarias to Ferragudo. Be interested to know the outcome if you can. Well worth posting (Wasn't Pato rehearsing for his part in Mother Goose by any chance!)

Tell it not to go near Chicken George's place

[quote="pato"][quote="Mike,Chislehurst"]Fascinating this, quite often see eagles flying around on the road from Sesmarias to Ferragudo. Be interested to know the outcome if you can. Well worth posting (Wasn't Pato rehearsing for his part in Mother Goose by any chance!)[/quote]Tell it not to go near Chicken George's place [/quote]

Good one Pato

Maybe it has been surprised by the increased cost of food in CVO especially the marmalade

Seriously I very much hope it can take off soon and finish its journey

see attached web site http://photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=6868961 - be a shock on your pipi-piri plate wouln't it?

Is it still there?
Janet O

just noticed in the photo write up at the bottom that these are now very rare and nearly extinct in the wild - guess CVO isnt classed as wild

steve wrote:There are pictures of the bird and I will see if I can work out how to post them tomorrow .....

Have you figured it out yet? Have you looked HERE?

Herewith 2 pictures of the bird. It had a white head and neck which I think means that it was a juvenile. When you see them up high in the sky you have no real impression of exactly how big they are. When they are perched close to you they look like the birds in the old westerns and are actually a bit intimidating.

When I let the dog out into the garden this morning just after 7.00 she went mad and I found that the vulture was sitting on our lawn. It was not fased by the dog barking and it was only when the dog got brave enough to approach it that it flew off up to a neighbours roof. All's well that ends well though because at about 10.30 when the temperature had risen I spotted the bird circling over Vale de Milho and gaining height before heading off south into the distance.

Great pictures. I'll bet you'll miss him when he's gone.