Sunday, 24 May 2020

Quarantine entry #64 - May 24


Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. Well, it does not suck always, but ‘suckage’ is a relative term, so there is that. I mean, yes, several of the websites I frequent began to undergo technical works almost at the same time, but that’s acceptable, relative and understandable – Hell, if it wasn’t for the lockdown I wouldn’t even care about them so much, but there’s the lockdown, the self-isolation, the Donald vs. Trudeau manhood competition, and here we are, at the end of a line. We tried to work it out, time after time… where were we?

Well, yesterday was the World Turtle day or whatever, so I wanted to talk about turtles – and so I have. Maybe not too much, but there’s only so much you can spin around turtles when you feel forced, so today let us revisit someone else – the vulture.

The American black vulture, aka the Urubú bird, aka Coragyps atratus, the second vulture of the USA…or maybe the third, if the California condor is involved. This modern dinosaur is somewhat smaller than its’ cousin the turkey vulture, with a more delicate bill, (proportionally speaking), and more delicate constitution: the American black vulture is a tropical bird, whereas the turkey vulture was encountered, (including yours truly), in the Canadian south during the summer, where the climate certainly isn’t tropical.

Next, we get to the taxonomic aspect of this avian: we are calling Coragyps atratus the American black vulture because there are at least two other birds that are called black vultures…at least to a point. First, there’s the Eurasian black vulture, better known as the cinereous vulture, Aegypius monachus, (yes, it is called the monk vulture as well sometimes), whose claim to fame is a cameo appearance in Sir David Attenborough’s ‘Planet Earth’ 2001 TV series, where a flock of those birds was scared away by an Amur leopard and her cub; given that the stage was set in Siberia, late winter/early spring, which added to its’ surrealness – you’re used to leopards scaring away vultures from kills in the African or Asian tropics, not amongst the Siberian snows… The point is that vultures as a group are tougher than they look, and should not be underestimated either.

However, the other… the other-other black vulture is the Indian black vulture, better known as the red-headed vulture, Sarcogyps calvus, and it isn’t doing so well, being critical endangered in the wild and all. It is found only on the Indian subcontinent, with small separated populations in South-east Asia from India to Singapore and it is not doing so well. Pity, because with its atypical ‘ear lobes’ on the sides of its’ neck, the red-headed vulture might be the more formidable vulture out of the three; it might’ve been the vulture mentioned in the Hindu epic ‘Ramayana’ – as the king of Rakshasas, Ravana, was carrying Sita to his island kingdom, the vulture king tried to stop him – and Ravana carved him like a Christmas turkey, as the unlucky avian was that outmatched. Dying, the vulture fell to the ground, where he was found by Rama and Laxman and told them everything, which helped them find Sita and rescue her that much faster.

Back across the oceans, the American black vulture has also left a mark in culture – in particular, in one South American native adaptation (or original take) of the ‘Noah and the Great Flood’ myth, this bird used to be a white dove instead – but when it was released to see if the waters have receded, it didn’t go back but began to feed on carrion… and eventually transformed itself into the black vulture, (of the Americas). Sometimes, myths and legends call take as strange a path as taxonomy does.

Speaking of taxonomy? The red-headed vulture is also called the Asian king vulture sometimes, but the real king vulture is also found in the New World, as it is a cousin of the American black vulture instead. Although it isn’t as impressive as its’ condor cousins, the American king vulture, (Sarcoramphus papa) is a very extravagant bird of its own, and may be the most colorful of all the vultures… but we’ve digressed.

For now, this is it instead. See you all soon!

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