Field Notes
The Egyptian vulture is a scavenger with a surprising intelligence. Small for a vulture, white as an adult and brown as a youngster, it is one of the few birds known to use tools — dropping stones to break open eggs too tough for its beak.
I have photographed them around Bangalore, including brown-plumaged juveniles still growing into the clean white of the adult. Endangered and declining across much of its range, it is a bird whose ordinary, everyday presence on open ground hides how much trouble the species is in.
Photographing vultures has changed how I see them — not as grim background figures but as clever, essential birds doing a job nothing else will.
