The Reminiscence of Vultures and their Disappearance in North - central Nigeria

Back then in the 70s, and early 80s, vultures were a beautiful and rampant sights in abattoirs, and town outskirts. When ever there was a dead animal around, they located it first, leading curious eyes of people, to the exact spot where the dead animal was. Children used to fly their kites and were always happy to look in to the sky and also saw the hovering vultures. There used to be six species of vultures in Nigeria, all in their good numbers. In early 80s and middle 90s, the disappearance of vultures became glaring to curious minds, but to most unsuspecting people, nothing seemed to have happened or nothing changed. Only two species of vulture exists today out of the six species; the white-backed vulture and the hooded vulture (Necrosyretes monachus). Hooded vulture, is one of the old world vultures that still exists as others have gone in to extinction in the country. Not many people have noticed their disappearance. Hooded vulture too, is increasingly declining despite its being uplisted to Critically endangered species by the IUCN in 2015.

When I set out to investigate the cause of their disappearance in North -central Nigeria, I had asked different people different questions about when last they saw a vulture. You will be surprised to know that, some people seemed to have been woken from their slumber of noticing their disappearance. "Hmmm, it's true my son, I don't recall when last I saw a vulture around again, unlike in the 60s and 70s, when they competed with butchers in abattoirs for pieces of meat, or even struggling to pull a part of slaughtered cow away." A man had replied me while touching his grey hair, as if in a struggle to think deep and far. Many people demanded to know why they have disappeared. My survey across all the 17 Local Government Areas of Plateau state (North- Central Nigeria), has answered the questions I raised, and which people continue to ask about why the vultures disappeared.

Continue to follow my blog, as we take a walk in to the mystery of the disappearance of vultures in North-Central Nigeria as I reveal all that I encountered, which also scared me; an experience of serendipity and hindsight which was the story of why vultures in Nigeria are easy to be found dead than alive. The story of the plight of vultures in the hands and plot of people. All these, will be the vivid tales of reality; a sober recollection of encounter and observations, in my months of searching for the threats affecting the vultures in the country.

From Pied Kingfishers to Northern Carmine bee-eaters

I came across this species of bird (Northern Carmine bee-eater) during birding in Bokkos last Saturday. That was the first time of encountering the species in my birding life. Quite a serendipity out there. A Nigerian birds atlassing team also reported coming across the species today in Gombe (Part of North-Eastern Nigeria). They have a unique food finding technique, that took a lot of my time, getting me rapt in observing that behaviour. I was so happy that I found such a beautiful bird species’ colony close to a dam where I have been observing the feeding successes of Pied Kingfisher. They were seen perching on a tree together (12 of them). They were seen scanning around for bees and other eatable insects, and on sighting any, they flew to snap it with their beak. So, their feeding went on, until a passerby went close and they flew to the next branch of tree, ensuring that there was a safety gap between them and the woman looking for firewood. I focused my binocular on them, and I was fortunate to observe one of the birds feedingfeeding the other. More observation revealed that, it was an adult feeding a young one. The younger one perched watching its mother diving in the air, manoeuvring to catch the insect. That was a hunting learning process for the young one. The mother brought the caught prey as the young one opened its beak to receive as its wings softly flap, not in flight but in appreciation (I thought).