The cinereous vulture
Aegypius monachus

The largest diurnal raptor in Europe. Up to 3.1 metres of wingspan and 14 kg on the scales for the heaviest individuals, according to Keith Bildstein in Vultures of the World (2022). It is a mass in flight, dark and slow, often mistaken at a distance for a griffon vulture before you realise the plumage is monochrome and the silhouette clearly heavier. In France, it breeds again since 1992 in the Cévennes, with a gradual expansion towards the Vercors and the Southern Alps.

Cinereous vulture ID card

Wingspan and size of the cinereous vulture

Wingspan: 2.5 to 3.1 m, with an average around 2.8 m. Weight: 7 to 14 kg, females heavier than males, the classic inversion among raptors. Length: 1.0 to 1.2 m. At equal wingspan, the cinereous weighs noticeably more than the griffon, which translates into stronger flight and less reliance on weak thermals.

It is the bird that disputes the title of largest European raptor with the bearded vulture. The two overlap in maximum wingspan, but the cinereous is much heavier and its flight profile is broader, more compact.

Recognising a cinereous vulture in flight

Three traits to stack:

• uniformly dark plumage, very dark brown to black, no contrast between wings and body (the griffon has a dark belly and a clearly visible pale head);
• bulky silhouette, wings broad and rectangular, held almost horizontal (the griffon holds them slightly raised in a shallow V);
• short, rounded tail, slightly wedge-shaped from some angles, never as long as the bearded vulture's.

The bare head is blue-grey in the adult, which gave the species the French name (the bare skin evokes a monk's cowl, hence vautour moine). The beak is very powerful, larger than the griffon's, capable of opening a fresh carcass where the griffon has to wait.

We long mixed up the cinereous and the griffon against the light, when both bellies look uniformly dark. The deciding mark: the head. The griffon has a clear pale patch, the cinereous does not.

Tree-nester, a rare trait

Among the sixteen Old World vulture species, the cinereous is one of the few to nest in trees, often a large pine or holm oak, rarely on a cliff. It builds a stick platform more than two metres across, reuses it year after year, and ends up visible from the ground hundreds of metres away. One chick per year, fledging in summer. The choice of tree is why the Cévennes, with their slopes of holm oaks and pines, were picked for the 1992 reintroduction: the habitat fits, wild ungulates and extensive livestock farming supply the resource.

That particularity makes the pairs sensitive to poorly placed forestry cuts. A parcel of old trees on a well-exposed slope is a rare asset.

Return to France of the cinereous vulture: 1992 and after

The cinereous vulture had vanished from France in the 19th century, wiped out by poisoning campaigns aimed at wolves and bears. It survived in Spain (Extremadura, Castile) and in a few isolated cores in Turkey, Greece and Central Asia.

The French reintroduction was launched by the LPO and the Cévennes National Park in the continuation of the griffon's return to the Causse Méjean (1981). First release in 1992 on the Causse Méjean, first wild breeders in 1996. The French population now exceeds 80 pairs, mostly in the Grands Causses, the Provençal Baronnies and the Verdon.

The birds observed in the Vercors come almost all from these southern cores and work their way up the Rhône and Drôme valleys. Jean-Marie Lamblard, in Le Vautour (2001), mentions the species under the old name vautour arrian, still used in some Pyrenean valleys.

Watching the cinereous vulture in the Vercors

The cinereous is not a bird of the central Vercors plateau. You see it mostly:

• on the southern ridges, from the Grand Veymont to the Col de Menée, with passages from the Diois;
• in Combe Laval and on the western foothills, when thermals lift from the Isère valley;
• at the Col du Rousset and on the Chamaloc side, contact zones between Vercors and Baronnies.

The Baronnies remain the best regional spot: Vautours en Baronnies runs observation points and keeps the map of known nests up to date, which naturalists respect. Vercors spots and time windows are in the vulture watching notebook.

Diet and place in the guild for the cinereous vulture

The cinereous is the first to open a fresh carcass when the griffon, though arriving earlier, cannot manage it. Its powerful beak cuts the skin of large ungulates, severs tendons, detaches muscles. It also tackles tough parts (cartilage, ligaments, pieces of skin) that the griffons leave behind. That complementarity is why the presence of the cinereous speeds up the whole chain: without it, a carcass can stay partly intact for several days if the griffon cannot open it.

In the well-studied Iberian populations, an adult cinereous covers 50 to 100 km a day in prospection, against 30 to 50 for a griffon. The cinereous flies further, more on its own, less dependent on the group. It often spots the carcass before the others, but waits for the griffon group to arrive to open the access. The scene, when you have the luck to witness it from a ridge, is worth all the optical gear.

On confusions: cinereous vs griffon vs ...

The most common case: cinereous vs griffon at long range. We set a simple marker before raising the binoculars, and it is always the same: what contrast on the head? If the head stands out as pale, it is a griffon. If the head does not stand out, it is a cinereous or, more rarely, a young bearded vulture still very dark. The diamond tail then decides.

For the full comparison of the four species, see the Vercors vultures and raptors pillar page and the eagle or vulture sheet. The three other species: griffon vulture, bearded vulture, Egyptian vulture. The historical and symbolic dimension: the vulture in history.

On early outings, we miss the cinereous because we are looking for a giant and forget that great discretion passes without noise. We tell participants to look first for the head contrast, not the size of the bird. Once the group has that reflex, IDs stabilise quickly, and hesitations on a distant flight become rare.