You know we’re really are keen on vultures already. And you know we have a pair of breeding Eurasian Griffon vultures. In Febraury 2023 our pair hatched a chick and raised it to the point of fledging.
It wasn’t without its issues. After considering all the options we removed the male from the aviary since there was a little too much ‘argument’ over which of the parent would brood the chick. In the wild, the adults share this duty, allowing the other bird to fly off to find food. This process of separation and change over can take hours — food can take a long time to find in the wild — however, in an aviary with food being delivered, the change over process was rather too fraught.
In the end the chick was raised by the female. And, as good luck would have it, our chick turned out to be a female bird. In tandem with the Horstman Trust, we then found a conservation project in the middle East which looks like an ideal location for our chick’s reintroduction to the wild.

The next step in the process was to prepare her documentation, her quaratine period, a vetinary check and some rather complicated travel plans and paperwork from the government Department For Food, Rural Affairs and Agriculture (Defra).

At the time of writing (late August) Lobellia, as she was named, is still waiting for her passport and boarding pass from Defra. But, for the first time ever in Scotland, we’ve bred, hatched and raised a Eurasian Griffon vulture. When she finally makes it over to warmer climes, there will be a little bit of Scotland soaring in the Lebanon-Israel skies.