How to capture a vulture?

In the morning we cobbled our shelf-masterpiece together, to get a worthy place for all the brochures of the vulture rescue centre VulPro. Well, mayba not as stable as IKEA, but I am sure we made the best of it. In March there will be a vulture conference in our education room, so we got the room ready for it.
The half blind Lapped-faced Vulture had to act as a guinea pig for my vulture-capture-arts.
For newcomers it is much easier to sneak up on a half blind vulture, 'cause he cannot see you from one side. Catch the vulture's neck right next to his head, try to "sit down" on the vulture's body to fix his enormous wings with your thighs. Put your right arm around his right wing and your left arm around the vulture's left wing, without releasing his head and take care of his claws. Now carefully get up and enjoy cuddling a vulture!!! ;-) Worked out really well! Did not lose any fingers! The poor Lapped-faced Vulture will get his eyedrops twice a day, so will get my next chance to capture him this afternoon. Hard to believe, but without awkward gloves, just barehanded, it's much easier to capture a vulture!
Most of the day I replaced the perches inside the enclosures. Either the vultures or the birds of prey need an opportunity to use and sharpen their claws. Therefore they need rough boles with lots of barks. When the perches are barkless and smooth birds will have a problem to land and sit on it without sliding. That's why we needed new perches. Looking in a big bunch of wood and boles for the best perches, trimming them with a saw, cutting wires, removing old and used perches, replacing them with new ones while the vultures were watching us Argus-eyed.
Today we finished the small rehabilitation enclosures, the bigger enclosures of the Cape Vultures and White-backed Vultures and also the enclosure of the aggressive Andean Condor and the two Palm-nut Vultures will follow soon.
Besides the work I might not miss visiting the beautiful vultures as often as possible.In between I did a quick side-trip to the vulture's restaurant where more then 30 wild vultures gathered on the grassland. Unfortunetly their searching for some food was unsuccessfully, 'cause we ran out of carcasses :-(After quite a while the vultures left the restaurant, but were still circling at the sky…
Many vultures, that come to VulPro, get tagged, what means they get a yellow marking on both of their wings, so people can identify them. At the moment the marking has a "B" and three numbers. On the back side of the marking we write down the phone number of VulPro in case an injured vulture was found somewhere. Our vulture-patient in the rehabilitation enclosure, a five month young Cape Vulture fledgeling who was rescued half starved, got tagged today, too. First we captured him and I was allowed to hold him in my arms, while the others looked at his constitution.Then he got a metallic marking ring around his leg. With united forces we hold him down on the ground and I fixed his head so he cannot bite anyone. Unfortunately the tagging-procedure is hurting the vulture very much :-( First we spread his wings, then we looked for the smalles "constriction" of his wing and tagged him ca. 5 cm below his upper side of the wing. When tagging of course you have to take not to puncture any nerves. Poor vulture, he did not like the procedure, especially when we tagged his second wing, too. In compensation for his pain I was allowed to release him in the big enclosure with lots of members of the same species. Now he doesn't has to be alone anymore. When releasing him you carefully bend down so the vulture can put his claws on the ground. Now you quickly open your arms, give the vulture a little push and back off - normally the vulture will not turn around to bite you, but escape forward ;-) Well done, goody-vulture!!! In contrast to this shy vulture our cute model vulture "Cody" scampered next to me. He is so pretty and gentle so he can be demonstrated when school classes visit VulPro. Really a vulture to touch... well, I was told I can touch him, but when I tryed to he softly bit my right hand! Just a harmless scratch, matter for a thrilling story ;-) But I have to come to the vulture's defence: I am sure the bite of a cat would hurt much more! Maybe the vulture just wanted to play with me!? This snack attack really made me chuckle, but I can absolutely go without a real vulture's bite!!! To protect yourself when capturing wild vultures it's recommended to wear (sun-)glasses. Gloves can protect your hands, but they are unfunctional when capturing the vultures, 'cause you cannot hold the vulture strong enough and get control of his neck and head. A vulture is a powerful bird! You will know when you are holding a vulture in your arms and he tries to spread his wings while suddenly moving his long neck at the same time and trying to turn his head to your face. But when I watch cute Cody being pet by Kerri, VulPros manager, I would rather prefer a faithful vulture a thousand times than a dog!!!
Later we stopped replacing the perches because of a short shower of rain. Just few minutes, but just wo raindrops with a perceived diameter of 10 cm made me soaking wet. We will go on replacing the perches tomorrow.Now it's time to admire the beautiful pictures of vultures!