Monarch of the feathered tribes of the forest, the king vulture fears no
rival throughout his wild domain. While the condor has its home on the
mountain-tops, the sovereign of the vultures confines himself
exclusively to the thickly-wooded regions along the banks of the rivers
or lagoons, where he can more readily obtain the carcasses on which he
feeds.
He is a magnificent bird, of about two feet and a half in length, and
upwards of five feet across the expanded wings. The neck is brilliantly
coloured of a fine lemon tint; both sides of the neck, from the ears
downwards, are of a rich scarlet. The crown of the head is scarlet, and
between the lower mandible and the eye, and close to the eye, there is a
part which has a fine blue appearance; the skin which juts out behind
the neck, like a carbuncle, is partly blue and partly orange. The bill
is orange and black. Round the bottom of the neck is a broad ruff of
soft, downy, ash-grey feathers, and the back and tail-coverts are of a
bright lawn. The middle wing-coverts and tail-feathers are glossy
black.
These superb birds may sometimes be seen seated in pairs on the topmost
boughs of trees, but occasionally in large flocks. The great expanse
and power of his wings enables the king vulture to soar to a prodigious
height, whence he can survey with his piercing sight a wide extent of
his domain; possibly also his exquisite sense of smell enables him to
detect the odour of the putrefying carcass which rises through the pure
air.
He is somewhat of a tyrant among his subjects; for not only will he
allow no other vultures or carrion-feeding birds to approach the carcass
he has selected, but on his appearance the other species, who may
already have discovered it, fly to a distance, and stand meekly looking
on while their sovereign gorges himself.
The king vulture makes his nest in the hollow of a tree, where his queen
lays two eggs.