It’s been less than three weeks since Wally took off on her first flight. In the meantime, the female bearded vulture has not only survived the violent storms and thunderstorms that have raged over the Berchtesgaden National Park these days. It has developed into a very experienced aviator. When the thermals on the Knittelhorn are good, Wally and Bavaria let themselves be carried up to heights of 2000 meters and more and then sail around over the rocky peaks. This is what Toni Wegscheider reports. The biologist is in charge of the resettlement of bearded vultures in the Berchtesgaden National Park, which is accompanied by the SZ. Wally – the name was chosen by SZ readers – and Bavaria are the first two to be released into the wild in the project. You are now learning to live in the wild.
This learning is full of adventure. Above all, Wally is a very agile and curious young bird, she explores the area on the Knittelhorn full of energy. Recently she even fought real dogfights for a few days with the golden eagles, who have their eyrie at the nearby Hochkalter. At the last one, the couple attacked Wally so violently that she panicked and gave heel money. “Out of the neck pit, really far away over the Knittelhorn,” reports Wegscheider. “Wally was completely out of sight, she didn’t reappear until the next lunchtime.”
Sequentially. The pair of golden eagles is old and very experienced, they have had their eyrie on the Hochkalter for eleven years. There is currently a young being raised there. The two parent animals are powerful birds of prey. “The female has a wingspan of 2.30 meters,” says Wegscheider. “The male is a bit smaller and younger. But it also has a wingspan of a good two meters.” Golden eagles and bearded vultures usually do nothing. They are not competitors, if only because bearded vultures mainly eat bones from fallen chamois and other fallen game. Golden eagles don’t care about bones.
However, the golden eagles on the Hochkalter are used to having sole control over the airspace in the region. Because so far they are the only powerful birds of prey there. Bearded vultures were also native to the Berchtesgaden mountains for centuries. Then Gypaetus barbatus, as the species is called in Latin, was exterminated across the Alps. With a wingspan of 2.90 meters, bearded vultures are even more powerful than golden eagles. In the eighties the resettlement of the scavengers began. There are currently around 300 bearded vultures living in the Alps. The project in Berchtesgaden, which is operated by the state association for bird protection, is intended to close the gap to the Balkans.
Biologist Toni Wegscheider has been bringing food in the form of chamois runs and skulls to the two female bearded vultures since they were released into the wild.
(Photo: Richard Straub / LBV)
“With the two of them, there are suddenly even larger birds of prey in the Berchtesgaden mountains than the golden eagles are,” reports Wegscheider. “That made the couple very curious, of course, the Knittelhorn belongs to their territory, they are always present there.” So in the past few weeks. At least one golden eagle has repeatedly flown over from the Hochkalter and explored what’s going on. The whole thing wasn’t a problem as long as Wally and Bavaria didn’t get really close to the golden eagle. First because the two of them couldn’t fly yet and spent the whole day in their rock niche. Later, because their flights were still very close to the ground, as Wegscheider says.
A good week ago, Wally and Bavaria got the trick with the thermals. “Suddenly they were able to let the warm air currents carry them up high and have reached the altitude of the golden eagle that was just on the way,” reports Wegscheider. And what did Wally do? “She pounced on the golden eagle, as it were,” says Wegscheider. “As if she wanted to make it clear to him that the air space on the Knittelhorn is now her territory.” Of course, Wally didn’t seriously attack the golden eagle. “Those were playful attacks,” says Wegscheider, “they had something bully-like, impetuous, adolescent about them.”
It was enough for the golden eagle. He was evidently so amazed by Wally’s goings-on that he accepted it without resistance. “Once, Wally drove him over the Halsalm,” says Wegscheider. “The other time she followed him up to the point of high cold and didn’t come back for a few hours.” It’s about seven kilometers as the crow flies from the Knittelhorn to the Hochkalter and back. That is really far. By then, Wally may have flown a kilometer at a time on her practice flights.
Then came Sunday. At lunchtime, the golden eagles flew from the Hochkalter to the Knittelhorn and struck back together. “They didn’t wait. When Wally was on their way, they attacked,” says Wegscheider, “and they did it really hard, from above, from behind, everything that birds can’t handle at all.” Wally, who didn’t expect such resistance, is up and away. Over the Knittelhorn in the direction of the Bavarian-Salzburg border region to the Mühlsturzhorns. There she crawled somewhere under a rock overhang or in a narrow niche and never moved away.
Wegscheider and his team not only watched the dogfights live. It is also based on the data that the GPS device that Wally carries on her back transfers to her computer. Wegscheider knew all along that Wally was not lost. But that she spends the following night about 2.5 kilometers as the crow flies at the Mühlsturzhörner. Thanks to the GPS device, Wegscheider can keep an eye on the female bearded vulture even when he is sitting at his desk in his office.
Nevertheless, Wegscheider was relieved when Wally flew into the rock niche on the Knittelhorn on Monday lunchtime. The rest is quickly told. “She was exhausted and starved,” says Wegscheider. “She went straight for the food that we had laid out.” Since then, Wally and Bavaria have been resting in the rock niche. Wally’s adventure also took Bavaria with it. “Bavaria missed Wally a lot,” reports Wegscheider. “She called out loud for her for hours.”