{"id":14580,"date":"2020-10-06T08:55:00","date_gmt":"2020-10-06T05:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/4vultures.org\/?p=14580"},"modified":"2025-05-05T15:47:08","modified_gmt":"2025-05-05T12:47:08","slug":"plumage-bleached-feathers-and-moulting-how-we-can-tell-apart-bearded-vultures-in-the-wild","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/4vultures.org\/pt\/blog\/plumage-bleached-feathers-and-moulting-how-we-can-tell-apart-bearded-vultures-in-the-wild\/","title":{"rendered":"Plumage, bleached feathers and moulting: How we can tell apart Bearded Vultures in the wild"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Johannes \u00a9 Hansruedi Weyrich<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

You hear us often talking about the age of certain Bearded Vultures or even mentioning their names. And you might ask yourself how come they can tell the difference? It is easy, and with a little practice, you can do it as well and actively contribute to the monitoring and conservation efforts of the species in Europe<\/a>!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bleaching some feathers of released birds<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

To help understand how effective our reintroduction efforts are, we need to monitor the survival and progress of the Bearded Vultures we release in the wild. To do so, we equip the birds with GPS tags ahead of their release to track their movements, but it is also useful to be able to identify them in the wild. So, all birds released in the different reintroduction projects by our partners get a unique code on their rings and we also bleach some feathers according to a European scheme\u00a0overseen by the\u00a0International Bearded Vulture Monitoring Network (IBM)<\/a>, which is coordinated by the Vulture Conservation Foundation (VCF). This enables all partners not only to recognise their \u201cown\u201d birds, but we can distinguish all birds in Europe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Bleaching feathers<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

To bleach the feathers, we use normal bleaching detergents, just like for hair. Feathers are no different in their structure than hairs. It is crucial not to bleach the feathers too much, otherwise, they get damaged too quickly and we only bleach some few feathers per bird. If you report your sighting of a bird with these feather markings, the local partner will be able to tell you the name and origin of the observed bird.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moulting and plumage<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n