Griffon vultures

Griffon vultures, El Cancho de La Bola, Sierra de La Cabrera.

Buitres Leonidas. Griffon Vultures. I was fortunate to get this close. I was upwind and in the shade; it helped! El Cancho de La Bola, Sierra de La Cabrera. Photo taken in May 2013, regardless of the exif date!

Vulture on top of El Cancho de La Bola, Sierra de La Cabrera. May 2013.

***'Watch the Master and learn!'*** Griffon Vultures, Cancho de La Bola, Sierra de La Cabrera. Granite. Madrid Province This one again (first shown on ipernity in 2016), simply because it is a favourite of mine.

The Sentinel! Griffon vulture. La Sierra de La Cabrera with El Pico de La Miel prominent.

Sierra de La Cabrera, On the ridge.

El Cancho de La Bola, favourite vulture haunt. Please view large!

I was soon to get right in among the upper rocks here and get close-ups of the vultures. I hadn't yet tried it when I took this shot, but I was working out the possibilities!

On their favourite rock, Cancho de La Bola. Sierra de La Cabrera. This prominent rock is white because it has been stained with approx 10,000 years of vulture guano, or so it has been claimed and the timeframe since the last ice age seems about right.

Segovia province, September 2013

A foggy December day. Worth it when emerging from the fog! Madrid was in fog. The entire 1.5 hour bus journey was in fog. 3/4 of my walk was in fog. I didn't know if I would break clear of it. But what joy when I did!

Griffon vulture on El Cancho de La Bola, Sierra de La Cabrera. I know I've said this before and I know one or two of you don't like the thought but this granite boulder is only white because of 10,000 years of guano!

Griffon vulture on El Cancho de La Bola. A clear day - Uceda, a village in Guadalajara province can be clearly seen here in mid-distance. Normally the heat haze or Madrid smog doesn't allow me to see that far. It has been suggested that full-screen works well here.

This does seem to be their favourite rock!

The same vulture rock, taken from a little further down and to one side.

Possibly a juvenile Griffon vulture, unsure of it's wings as yet. I wasn't sure. It kept taking tentative steps to the edge then backed away, rustling its feathers all the time. I had a bus to catch so couldn't wait to see what happened. I would have loved to have captured a maiden flight! I also took a shot with the vulture nearer the top of the picture, with a greater expanse of cliff below it but it had nothing like the same impact, curiously!

La Sierra de La Cabrera. A fiercely hot day, Even the vultures didn't exert themselves Only the idiot Englishman!

In order to get shots of vultures, I need to crawl through this rock window as quietly as possible, creep ever so slowly up the rocks to the right and get to a position slightly above them, all the while staying as much as possible in the shade and it only works anyway if the wind is in your face, for obvious reasons! I posted this version of the shot by mistake. I have the unedited version, an unfinished and poorly edited version (this) and the one I intended to post. I decided to keep it as I didn't want to delete the fist few comments and the difference is in fact quite small! 'Sight and Sound' entry refers to my replies to Jean's and Larry's comments below where I found myself repeating the line 'hopes in vain' regarding the vulture watching me, hoping I might fall off! That thought led to my recalling (in a roundabout kind of way, without much logic, but using random association as we all do) the The Rolling Stones' 'Love in Vain.' www.youtube.com/watch?v=GETfPHaBbwY