The instinct with any big raptor is to get the face. Wait for the head-on stare, fill the frame with the beak, go home. That instinct throws away the best part of a griffon vulture, which is the back. Scapulars and wing coverts laid over each other like roof tiles, every feather a slightly different shade of sand and buff, the whole thing narrowing into near-black flight feathers at the bottom.