During this turkey weekend I found a bird called Pharoah’s Chicken, though he isn’t a chicken at all.

This large bird of prey is an Egyptian vulture (Neophron percnopterus) whose nickname refers to his use as a symbol of Egyptian royalty.

He lives in Europe, Asia and Africa but he no longer lives well.  Sadly he’s endangered, having declined by 50% in Europe in only 20 years (1980-2001) and drastically in India where there’s a vulture crisis caused by livestock antibiotics that are poisonous to the vultures.

This bird posed nicely for a photograph in a zoo in Spain.

(photo from Wikimedia Commons. Click on the image to see the original)