Birds of the Bible: Bearded Vulture

I've had nearly a year now to birdwatch in the Bible and investigate who I found there. The three-book series to which I committed are coming in for a landing. One copy of Bearded Vulture is bound, so therefore, I can finally share it. I wrote some of the text for it first, and I knew the form it would take, but Quail and Raven jostled for my attention first and second. Seager/Gray Gallery in Mill Valley will be showing all three books in October, along with Letters of Transit: Bird Passports, and The Third Light, and a few other works in Gallery 3, for a small solo show: Birds of the Book. I'm working on a catalogue for it. More on that later.

Front has cutout for a letterpress printed, wood type V. 

Japanese book cloth is shimmery copper/navy blue.

More V shapes. Doubled covers: outer and inner, like wings unfolding.

Inner covers have cutout with a Bearded Vulture linocut in black.

The wings unfold! Two accordions, each with handset type letterpress printed in white on Stonehenge black paper. They meet in the center, where two Bearded Vultures live. The endpapers are paste paper frottage from cutouts of feather shapes.

Reduction linoleum prints of bones and fragments, the primary food of Bearded Vultures, are the first and last images. Yes, they eat bones! I printed white on white on white and loved the effect of the black paper showing through.

Dip-dyed muslin in Payne's gray acrylic ink. 

Sewn into the signatures and trimmed into feather shapes.

In the wild, Bearded Vultures preen with iron-rich soil, giving them a rusty color. In captivity, their body feathers remain white. I hand colored the reduction cuts with "red earth" acrylic ink.

Bearded Vultures are interesting Old World birds. We don't have them in North America. The last nesting pair in Israel/Palestine was seen in 1982.

Addendum: 9.4.19
This was the video I watched to get a feel for the birds and to take screenshots from which to draw. It's a quick tour through their life cycle.