Nature’s Perfect Flying Creature Can Be Found Right Here in Kenya

A Rüppell's Vulture. You can see them in the Maasai Mara. Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.

Of the more than 1,000 bird species recorded in Kenya, I find the Rüppell’s Vulture (Gyps rueppellii), to be among the most fascinating. With a current estimated population of about 30,000, the Rüppell’s Vulture (also known as Rüppell’s Griffon), like many other animals of the wild, is in decline due mostly to ongoing loss of habitat. The species has been listed with an IUCN Red List status of ‘near threatened’.

Named after the 19th century German explorer, collector and zoologist, Eduard Rüppell, the Rüppell’s Vulture holds the record of the world’s highest-flying bird, reaching heights as high as 11,000m (36,100 ft.) above sea level. On average, they can climb to a height of 6,000m (20,000 ft.).

The vulture is highly social, roosting, nesting, and gathering to feed in large flocks. They can reach speeds of 35km/h and will fly as far as 150km from its nest to look for food.

Their ability to scale such heights is attributed to a specialized type of protein in their blood that has an affinity for oxygen. This allows them to take up oxygen efficiently despite the low pressure in such high altitudes.

From the life of the Rüppell’s Vulture, many lessons can be learnt – both good and bad. They spend their whole life (about 40 to 50 years) in pairs and they never part from each other throughout their life. How romantic? They even take turns to lie on the one egg that is hatched and go on to feed the offspring that is produced together. A truly amazing partnership right there!

But when it comes to building their love nests, the raw material (usually sticks, leaves and grass) comes from the ‘lady Rüppell’s who literary steals the sticks from the nests of other Rüppell’s couples nearby and brings them to the male who does the design and architectural work on the usually large nest without asking about the source of the raw material (the colonies can be as large as 1,000 pairs of breeding birds living close together).

These perfect sanitizers by mother nature have a powerful bill with backward-facing splines on their tongues to help remove meat from bones. Long after cleaning the flesh off of a carcass, they will proceed to feast on the hide, then the bones – gorging themselves until they cannot be able to fly. If you want to catch a glimpse of this magnificent bird, the Maasai Mara might be a good place to start.

Remember to check out our ‘Birds of Kenya‘ photo gallery while you are here.

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