Appearance:

Unmistakable. Extremely long tail and short wings. Fluttering and undulating flight, with peculiar silhouette like a small ball with a long tail. Head of Northern Europe sub.sp. completely white. Continental and British birds with broad, dark supercilium. Juveniles head dark with white crown and throat. Always active and on the move in small groups.

Sound:

Song: Rapid, continuous, randomly composed sequence of bubbling,chirping sounds. Call: quite short, chirping, twittering "tzzirrret tzirrrret". Often starting at high pitch and rapidly falling, or just flat. Also a thin, slightly falling "zi zi ziii".

Contact call:

Distribution:

Xeno-canto: map

Ecology:

Birdlife ecology

Links:

Observation.org Latest observations

Video IBC

Image search Flickr NB! May give other species

Sound search at Xeno-canto

Featherbase

CC

Appearance:

Europe's biggest raptor. All dark vulture with short, wedge-shaped tail and very long and broad wings. Legs pale, and usually readily visible. May resemble White-tailed Eagle or Greater Spotted Eagle at distance, but note short neck, less protruding head, even longer and broader wings, and shorter tail. Under wing-coverts darker than flight-feathers. Trailing edge of wing fairly straight compared to S-shaped edge in Griffon Vulture, making the overall wing-shape more squarish. This is most obvious when soaring on stretched wings. Soars with wings leveled, not raised, often with hand lowered. Frequently raises tail just before landing.

Sound:

Voice little used but varied. Grunts,croaking, mewing, hissing etc. heard when breeding or feeding at carcasses.

Distribution:

Wikipedia: map (se also Xeno-canto below)

Ecology:

Birdlife ecology

Links:

Observation.org Latest observations

Video IBC

Image search Flickr NB! May give other species

Sound search at Xeno-canto

CC