Griffon Vultures up close

What an amazing experience.  We were so close we could smell them, and they were a bit wiffy.  The sheer numbers and the frenzy when the meat was put out was breathtaking.

The feeding station was located high up on a mountain in Northern Spain.  To get the following photos we had to be quick as it was all over in minutes as the vultures demolished a huge amount of meat in no time at all.

First a little history about how the feeding stations materialized.  When Mad Cow disease broke out in the UK the Spanish authorities were worried about it spreading into Spain so a law was passed that farmers had to remove any dead livestock on their land.  These dead animals were a vital food source for the vultures so the vulture numbers began to decline.  This resulted in the creation of these feeding stations and the vulture numbers are now increasing again.