Bearded Vulture or Lammergeier ( Read the details for the story)

[Hymakar Valluru]

Day 6 at Hemis National Park :

On day 5 we had reached Rumbak Valley which a 2 hrs + walk from our base camp at Husing valley. On that day one of our spotters has seen the Snow Leopard cross the ridge almost at 5000 mtrs above sea level, by the time we got to the spotting scope in the valley it was gone. If it was there also we would have taken half an hour to make out even with Bushnell scopes.

We waited till later afternoon in the valley and later sighted Tibetan Wolves which as per the spotters is rare than Snow Leopard. (Got record shots will post in Mammals section later)

We stayed Rumbak Valley that night at a home stay, Rumbak village has 7 houses and all the 7 houses have the home stay facility, there is a small Bhukari, 4 mattresses, Rajai and Rug, with basic amenities to live. Temperature was much colder than at base camp, it was windy too. Temp must be - 12 to -16 in the afternoon.

Next day morning we had gone back to valley to see any traces of the Snow Leopard, there we saw a red fox which was spotted by our Spanish friends through their fancy Swaroski scopes. While we were buzy clicking red fox and Mountain weasel, there was a serious tracking and discussions going on between our spotters.

I reached out to them for details, story was Snow leopard crossed the ridge and in the late evening got into the valley close by and killed a blue sheep while the snow leopard was having its meal pack of wolves landed and there and chased away the Snow Leopard, Wolves finished most of the sheep in the night and left to their den.

In the morning a Golden Eagle caught the left over and flew to a different valley and dropped the carcass, later which this Bearded Vulture chased the Golden Eagle away and took over the bones in the carcass.

Bearded vultures are interested in bones, they pick up the bones fly on top of a rock and drop the bone so that it breaks after which they relish the bone marrow. ( This is what I was informed).

I could see only the sequence of Golden Eagle carrying and dropping the carcass and this vulture chasing it away.

After while this vulture started taking rounds and started flying from a different direction towards the side we were sitting, Sucheth saw this Vulture and called me and Nanda.. and i was lucky to get this shot with Snow capped mountains in the background.

EXIF:

Canon 60D
300 f/2.8 IS II USM
2X III TC
F/5.6
1/2000
ISO 400.

[Roopak Gangadharan]

Super Hymakar..request you to put up a complete trip report in the wilderness updates section... there seems to be a lot of action and it is not every day you have people covering these areas. Will look forward to it.
TFS
Roopak

[Shyamala Kumar]

Beautiful image from the more inhospitable an relatively inaccessible parts of our country.Looking forward to more of them and informative write ups about them.Thanks for sharing.

[Abhishek Jamalabad]

Nice image. The habitat inclusion makes this a rather unique perspective. I guess the Lammergeier's habit of feeding on marrow (rather than flesh & viscera) is one factor that has kept its populations healthier than those of the Gyps vultures.