Vultures

The skeletal branches of a dead tree along the links at Littleferry brought a vivid memory flash of a hot day at Saadani when we found....

....two vultures sitting in a similar tree surveying the scene. What I loved about this photograph was the intruder, a swift, very possibly a British swift since the BTO has tracked swifts to Tanzania - see their website here.

Vultures spend much of their day high above the land looking for death on the ground. Once a kill is located, they start to descend.  As others join them, a great column of vultures forms as they spiral down to perch in a tree or other such vantage point. These ones at Lake Manze had come down to watch a small pride of lions which, at the time, hadn't made a kill and didn't look as if they had the energy to get up and provide the vultures with a meal.

Vultures aren't beautiful birds, and their table manners are little short of disgusting, but they play an important role in keeping the land clear of rotting carrion and spreading the goodness that is in a kill across the countryside. Sadly, in Tanzania as elsewhere, they're having a bad time. As scavengers, their main threat is poisoning, accidentally from pesticides, indirectly from veterinary use and through its illegal use in killing livestock predators.  They may also be deliberately targeted by poachers who wish to avoid the circling column of vultures which indicate, from afar, the location of a recently killed animal.