The bearded vulture has another name, lammergeier. The name lammergeier means lamb vulture, but the bird was wrongly blamed for taking lambs. In Spain, the bird is called Quebrantahuesos, which means bone breaker.
A bearded vulture eats mostly bones, and it swallows small bones whole. If a bone is too big to swallow, it carries the bone high up and drops it onto rocks, and very strong acid in its stomach helps it digest bones. It finds food by using its eyes, and it helps clean up nature by eating what other animals leave behind.
An adult bearded vulture weighs about 4.5 to 7 kilograms (10 to 15 pounds). It measures 94 to 125 centimeters (37 to 49 inches) from beak to tail. Its wings spread 231 to 283 centimeters (91 to 111 inches) from tip to tip.
A young bearded vulture is dark brown. As it grows up, the feathers of its head, chest and belly turn white. A grown-up has orange feathers, most of all on its chest. Bearded vultures bathe in water that has iron in it, which dyes their chest feathers orange.
Bearded vultures live in parts of Europe, Asia and Africa. They live high up in the mountains, in places between 300 and 4,500 meters above sea level.
A bearded vulture is grown up enough to breed at 5 to 7 years old. In the Alps, bearded vultures start breeding in winter, between late December and late February.
A pair of bearded vultures uses the same nest again in later breeding seasons. The nest is on a ledge of a rock cliff, lined with sticks, wool, hair and even rags.
A bearded vulture egg takes about 55 days to hatch. A pair of bearded vultures raises one chick in a breeding season. Young chicks cannot digest bone, so their parents bring them fresh meat first.
As of November 2026, the bearded vulture is listed as Near Threatened, and its numbers are going down overall. People brought bearded vultures back to the Alps in 1986, starting in Austria.
In zoos, bearded vultures can live to be 40 to 50 years old. A bearded vulture can glide for hours without flapping its wings.
Words to know
- lammergeier: lamb vulture
- digest: break down food
- hatch: come out
- breeding: raising young
- iron: a metal
