Why I post this article here? Is there a conncection between Earth Hour 2012 and vultures? Of course it is!!! In my point of view vultures are wonderful examples for the beauty of our nature. Not just amazing to look at, but a wonder of evolution: Being the health police of our planet vultures eat carcasses and next to cities even trash, so they help keeping our planet clean and prevent the transmission of diseases. Unfortunately most people still don't honor this, cause I often hear: "Vultures? Urgh, ugly, they are eating dead animals!" But what would happen to our planet if vultures would not like to do this ungrateful job anymore? People should start thinking about these consequences - not just today at 20.30 for just one hour!!!
Sadly, every year copious quantities of vultures (and other birds) die because of collision with power lines and electrocution.
Vultures like to sit down on the highest point of the surrounding when resting or nesting. Unfortunately most of the times these highest points are pylons of power lines. When colliding with a power line or a pylon vultures crash, break their wings and would die a wretched death if noone comes across. And even if someone will find the injured vultures, in most cases broken wings must be amputated :-( As a consequence, living and surviving in their natural surroundings will not be possible anymore and the vultures have to stay in an enclosure of a vulture rescue centre like VulPro in South Africa for the rest of their lives.Some vultures die as a result of electrocution when touching two power lines at the same time, touching unisolated powerlines or when the power gets conducted by nesting material or vultures dung. No vulture will survive electrocution! And some more vultures get caught up in non-vulture-proved pylons, cannot free themselves and die of starvation or because of their bad injuries.
The South African electricity public utility ESKOM, constructor of the most power lines in whole Africa, runs a project in collaboration with VulPro to protect vultures by putting dummy-pylons inside the vultures enclosures and analyse the reaction of the vultures to different pylon-designs (more details are written in an older post)... but as usual people will never consequently implement measures to protect vultures when they have to spend money.One more reason not just to turn off the light but turn off as many sources of electricity as possible, to lay a marker on protection of vultures and preservation of our wonderful nature!!! Count me in!!!
"Snowflake" was proudly sitting in her nest, 
while the "Sir" made himself comfortable on a perch.
The vultures started building their nest just few days before egg deposition, that's why they are still completing their nest. First of all the female vulture, who is collecting branches and clumps of grass whenever she leaves her nest heavy-hearted to let her partner sit on the egg. When collecting nesting material she seemed to be very stressed, running criss-cross through the enclosure her beak stuffed with branches and hastening back to her nest. Her partner tryed to impress her with nesting material, too, 
but he wasn't able to satisfy her. Branch too small, too big, wrong position... poor guy! 
But I am sure they both love each other very much, otherwise they would not have laid an egg after such a short relationship.
Watching these cute couple in love I sadly remembered the lonely Andean Condor at VulPro. I really would love to set him up with a lovely female Condor so he will not be lonely anymore. 
At lunchtime the vultures of Antwerp got some tasty spareribs and fat white rats. Carrion go!
Half an hour later the Andean Condors started copulating while many visitors were watching them. Before arriving at the Zoo of Antwerp I hoped to be able watching them copulating, 'cause at this time I did not know you can set your watch to this. There are special noises and situations that really make the Condors horny and they suddenly start making love ;-)
Compared to Old World Vultures (like Cape Vultures and Eurasian Black Vultures) the New World Vultures (like Andean Condors) don't have a glottis. When copulating they cannot make such funny donkey-like noises like the cute Cape Vultures of South Africa, but just can hiss. Well, but the Condors copulation took a much longer time!
They build their nest on a wooden platform with a mirror fixed above the nest. Our timing was perfect, 'cause we were able to take a look at the egg (thanks to the mirror), when the vultures changed their position. 
Hopefully a cute Hooded Vulture chick will hatch this year!!!
It's not surprising that the two of them are ignored all the time or even the visitors give a sniff at them :-( Their enclosure is just too small and uncomfortable, so noone can acknowledge the beauty of the residents. 
Most of the people might not like their red, naked head, but to me they awake my protective instinct! I like this sympathetic guys!!!
Next to the Eurasian Black Vultures enclosure there is a new wall chart of the wingspan of different birds. 
Nice to look at, but unfortunately some mistakes in translation and spelling. Next to this wall chart there is another sign with a stuffed Thanksgiving Turkey (in protest to this I will not put a picture on my blog). Very macabre, 'cause all the living birds in the enclosures around have to watch their grilled colleague now. There's no accounting for taste...
The Dating-enclosure is placed next to the parking area and at the moment you can go there for free, because it's not inside the zoo! There are four Eurasian Black Vultures and three Eurasian Griffon Vultures living on 870 m² with a maximum hight of 24 m to meet their life partners. 
Probably some more vultures will join this enclosure soon to bring together as many vulture couples as possible for breeding.
All chimneys and roofs of the zoo were populated by Storks, which were sometimes walking next to the visitors, too. Like the vultures they felt frisky... 
This raises the question: How will bring the baby Storks???
I guess noone would see the beautiful Secretary Birds, too, if you would not know they are living in Planckendael. Hiding somewhere behind the scenes, not possible to go close to their enclosure. And the couple of Secretary Birds, that was living in a "normal" enclosure last August, has moved somewhere we don't know.
But the television with information about vultures and the annoying song "I believe, I can flyyyyyyyyyy" is still working...
so I knew: They actually laid their egg!!!
When a zookeeper put two pig carcasses inside the enclosure mommy-griffon devoured big pieces of meat together with the Marabous, while daddy-griffon protected the nest against porcupines and other Marabous.
One hour later mommy-griffon was full, cleaned her beak at a rock, arranged her feathers and was ready to spell daddy-griffon at breeding.
Annoyingly, right at this moment it became very noisy around me 'cause some visitors were shouting and roaring very loudly. The poor vultures got frightened and both left their nest.
One minute or even more the egg was lying in the nest without protection ;-( 
It's a shame, that some visitors don't consider breeding vultures! I am glad mommy-griffon came back to her nest very soon (headfirst, funny posture), 
tenderly touched her egg with her beak, placed some little sticks in the nest and secured her egg under her soft and warm feathers.
One minute later she got up again, changed her position to make her egg feel more comfortable and relaxed.
In between daddy-griffon noshed some fresh meat and drank some water.
Thanks to my volunteering work at VulPro I know how important perches with a rough surface are. A new trunk with lots of barks would be very nice for the Griffon Vultures of Duisburg - but somehow it would be very sad to replace the vultures beloved trunk.
I really would love to see the vultures fly over the fence 'cause they never give up longing to fly at last. Furthermore it would have been a good chance for me to practice my skills in catching vultures ;-)