Wild Nature; Majestic Bird of Prey Vulture takes on desert dog to win the Decaying Caracas

Hunger, is the world’s greatest motivating and driving force and 

that is actually what happened when hungry vultures decided to prey upon wildest and fearsome hunters of forest; pack of jackals over a carcass in South Africa, but unfortunately the peckish vulture and its friends had to leave empty handed.


The vulture had more difficulty picking up the snack than he bargained 

for when the jackals fought back, aggressively defending their position on the mountain.  The hungry bird took off after a tussle to join its fellow vultures, leaving the two black-backed jackals to fight among themselves. 

The carcass was put out for the vultures so that visitors to the Giants Castle Nature Reserve could view them closer, but the vultures were far too late by the time they arrived as the jackals had already claimed it. 

This particular jackal, the black-backed jackal, is distinguished by

 its black and silver patch running down the length of its fur.  They are social animals, who usually join up with other jackals for the purpose of hunting large prey, but this time they seem to have fallen out among themselves as they challenged each other after the vultures had flown off. 

Both the black-backed jackals and the bearded vultures are rare.

Home to both the eland and bearded vultures, the nature reserve is protecting the last 200 breeding pairs of the bearded vulture, which have a wing span of more than two and a half metres.
This reserve was initially created to protect the last herds of Eland, Africa's biggest antelope species, but is now home to many protected animals. Wildlife photographer Mitchell Krog was only expecting to see the vultures feeding but was thrilled to capture them creatures scrapping with the vultures.  

Mitchell explained: 'The hide from where these images were captured is open for visitors to watch the bearded vultures and other endangered bird species.'  

'These images were captured when a group of jackals arrived on top of the mountain in the late afternoon to come and steal the meaty bones that were placed out for the vultures. '

The sets of images portray what ensued, which was a lot of fighting between the jackals themselves and the vultures.'