Griffon Vulture soaring in the Himalayan sky

Raptors and many sea birds, in this video vultures, endure flight for extended periods without flapping their wings. They take advantage of warm air rising from the dry ground in a spiral life, produced when the wind blows over hills and mountain ridges, making use of rising columns of warm air called "thermals." Air from high-pressure areas beneath the wings tends to flow over the wingtips into the low-pressure areas above the wings. Vultures stay within thermals by flying slowly in tight circles. They have brief, broad wings and a low ratio of bird weight to wing area, known as low wing loading that allows them to remain aloft and to be highly navigable at slow speeds. They also have a low ratio of length to width of the wing, know as low aspect ratio, something that is dictated by their takeoff requirements. Low-aspect-ratio wings generally produce a lot of drag -- that is, resistance from the air through which they are moving.
A low-aspect-ratio wing, important for navigating and guiding, however creates a great deal of drag, something that is very undesirable in a soaring bird.
Vultures ease this problem marginally by flying with their primary feathers stretched, creating periods between them. Each primary serves as an individual high-aspect-ratio wing, reducing wingtip turbulence and lowering the stalling speed of the wing so that the bird can remain aloft at a slower speed. This helps vultures to circle perpetually in thermals, maintaining thrust by gliding downward, but staying aloft by sinking at a rate slower than the hot air is rising.

This footage is part of the broadcast stock footage archive of Wilderness Films India Ltd., the largest collection of HD imagery from South Asia. The collection comprises of 150, 000+ hours of high quality broadcast imagery, mostly shot on 4K, 200 fps slow motion, Full HD, HDCAM 1080i High Definition, Alexa and XDCAM. Write to us for licensing this footage on a broadcast format, for use in your production! We are happy to be commissioned to film for you or else provide you with broadcast crewing and production solutions across South Asia. We pride ourselves in bringing the best of India and South Asia to the world...

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[pratikpatil]

Vultures are so rare I have never seen one in my life until now.