International Vulture Awareness Day: The Griffon Vulture
The 5th September 2026 is International Vulture Awareness Day. To mark this, and the 350th anniversary of the publication of Francis Willughby’s Ornithologia, this post will focus on part of the description of a Griffon Vulture provided in Ornithologia.
In 1663, Francis Willughby, John Ray, Philip Skippon and Nathaniel Bacon began their scientific European Tour in which they visited numerous European countries and documented their experiences and observations. They wrote that they observed a bird when they were in Venice at a palace on the Grand Canal of a certain nobleman of the city. In their journals, they recorded the details of the bird.
Willughby and Ray thought that the bird was what was called the Vulturine Eagle, Percnopteros or Gypaëtos. That species is today identified as the Egyptian Vulture. However, the description of the species that Willughby and Ray had observed is actually accurate for a Griffon Vulture. The Griffon Vulture was given the official binomial name of Vultur fulvus by Carl von Hablizl in 1783. The genus Gyps was introduced by Marie Jules César Savigny in 1809, which gave it its modern name of Gyps fulvus.
In Ornithologia, it was written that, in size it was equal to or exceeded all eagles that they had ever seen. The bill was large and more like a gull’s than an eagle’s. Its tip was white. The nostrils were covered with a black membrane and they turned directly downward. There was a kind of liquid water constantly dripping from them. From the bill to the eyes, the skin was bare and a bluish colour. The irises of the eyes were a reddish-hazel colour.
The head and neck were bare of feathers and instead were only covered with a white down. Almost all the feathers of the body were a pale ferruginous (rusty) colour. On the lower part of the neck, below the down, there was a kind of collar or ruff of long white feathers. The primary wing feathers and the tail were black.
The feet were lead coloured and the middle toe was much longer than the rest. The claws were black and, in comparison to those of an eagle, smaller and not as crooked. The crop hung down from the body in front of it like a bag. The bird stood almost always with its wings stretched out. Today, this pose is known as the horaltic pose and that vultures do it for thermoregulation, to dry their feathers and get rid of bacteria and parasites.
Further Reading: John Ray, Francis Willughby’s Ornithologia, 1678, p.64, T4.
Author - Debbie Jordan, Middleton Hall Volunteer.
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