When I first met Gilbert and Baton Rouge, our gorgeous King Vultures, I couldn’t stop staring at the beautiful coloration on their heads!
Baton Rouge, our magnificent King Vulture
I had never imagined such beauty in a vulture. Before I started working for WBS, I had always thought of vultures as a generally unattractive and gross group of birds. Seeing these King Vultures for the first time began a change in the way I thought of all vultures. For example, I noticed that when the sun shines on our new turkey vulture, Kinsey’s feathers, they are not only charcoal black, but blue, green, and purple too!
King vultures have a variety of colors on their head: red, orange, yellow, blue, purple, black. In addition, the majority of their body is mostly white with a light rose tint, very unlike the other vultures in the new world, which have mostly very dark feathers. King vultures range from southern Mexico to northern Argentina, inhabiting forests in tropical lowlands. In Mayan mythology, the King vulture is portrayed as a god bringing messages between humans and the other gods!
I am particularly interested in the parenting behavior and courting/mating rituals of animals. King vultures have quite an elaborate mating ritual, involving a pair circling around each other, wings flapping. When mating, they can be very loud, with unique snorting and wheezing sounds. They do not build nests but lay their eggs in stumps, logs or tree crevices. They normally lay only one egg, and both parents incubate and care for the young. The parents will store food in their crop and regurgitate it into the chick’s mouth. As the baby gets older, the parents will regurgitate it onto the ground. Yum!
Since King Vultures are a tropical species and require heated quarters during the winter, they are not on display in areas normally open to the general public. However, if you come to our Open House in the fall you will be able to see them at our lower site which is open to the public during this one special weekend of the year. Or, if you are fortunate enough this summer to attend one of our shows at the Milwaukee County Zoo, be sure to look for one of these beautiful birds during the performance.
Since King Vultures are a tropical species and require heated quarters during the winter, they are not on display in areas normally open to the general public. However, if you come to our Open House in the fall you will be able to see them at our lower site which is open to the public during this one special weekend of the year. Or, if you are fortunate enough this summer to attend one of our shows at the Milwaukee County Zoo, be sure to look for one of these beautiful birds during the performance.
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