vignettes turkey vultures

8/9/2019 VIGNETTES Turkey Vultures

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In Case Youre Wondering

Where All These Eagles Came from,

Turkey Vultures

Are No Longer Southern Birds.


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With wingspreads averaging six feet, turkey vultures are among the largest birds inNorth America. Only the California condor and our two American eagles are larger. Aturkey vulture can soar for hours, without once beating its wings. For long trips it ridesthe thermal updrafts, its great wings widespread, spiraling to altitudes of severalthousand feet, then gliding downward to the base of the next thermal, where it onceagain spirals upward. Vultures have been known to soar as high as a mile.

In my youth we knew Cathartes aura as turkey buzzards, and they were strictlysouthern birds. During my twenties, I saw them everywhere I went in thesoutheastern states, but never in New England, and that remained true for most of mylife. I know now that many of the birds I was seeing in the South must have beenblack vultures (Coragyps atratus). The black vulture is found in the east and deepsouth, and seldom in the west, but is expanding its range northward. Turkey vulturesnow range from Canada to the tip of Cape Horn and from the West Coast to the EastCoast, but not until 1995 did I first see them in New England, and then it was in Essex,

My Thanks to The Turkey Vulture Society and Jon Mold Photography Company (UK)


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a town adjoining mine.Like all new world vultures, the turkey vulture lacks a syrinx, so it has difficulty

vocalizing. When disturbed, though, its been known to make guttural grunts andrattles. One vulture being harassed by two kingbirds made a two-syllable sound which

was caught on tape by Doug Von Gausig. He made a clickable link (I heard it), but it

no longer works.For two or three years (until 1997 or 1998) Isaw only two turkey vultures, always together,and often circling over a hilltop where theEssex sawmill operates. Stacks of logs andsawn lumber do attract many small animals,but I should think this would draw owls andhawks rather than scavengers. Possibly theturkey vultures chose the hill as a nesting site,for the following summer I saw four birds.

I understand that mating turkeyvultures isolate themselves from their roost (agroup of vultures living together and sleepingat night in a tall tree), lay two eggs, and raisetheir young. Vultures are not nest-builders.They just lay their eggs on rock ledges, incaves or hollow trees, even in abandonedsheds or barns.

A year later I saw seven turkey vulturesabout a hundred feet overhead, in a tightgroup, playing with each other. Nearly every

time I visit the Island Road salt marsh in Essexduring the warmer months, I see at least oneturkey vulture. They may be attracted to thechicken farm there, or to the chickenhatchery on the other side of Route 133.

Turkey vultures are easily recognized,even from a distance, because of the shallow

upward dihedral (vee) in which they hold their wings, the way they rock their wingsfrom side to side as they glide, and their dark brown to black color. Their large size isanother field mark. And if you can get close enough, the naked red head and neck arekey identifiers, on adults, anyway. I see many vultures with black heads and necks.These may be juvenile turkey vultures, or black vultures. The vast majority of vultures Isee hold their wings in the upward dihedral characteristic of turkey vultures.

On a scorching, humid, windless day in early August 2000, my late friend HerbKenny and I saw a turkey vulture on the ground, on a hillside hayfield above IslandRoad in Essex. This was the first one I had seen on the ground, and I was impressedby its body size, literally as big as a turkey. On the ground they resemble wild turkeys,

which may be why they were nicknamed turkey vultures. Whenever I was down

My Thanks to lakesidenaturecenter.org


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south, I saw them everywhere, but folks there called them turkeybuzzards.Herb Kenny was a bird watcher of some reknown, but this was the first time he

had ever seen a turkey vulture. Before seeing this one, he'd had trouble believing myfrequent reports, for he had still thought of them as southern birds.

The vulture in the hayfield took flight, just as a goshawk came flying low aroundthe brow of the hill. The hawk made what appeared to be a halfhearted pass at the

vulture, then flew off across the salt marsh. The vulture headed in the oppositedirection, where we could see a second vulture soaring in the distance.

In the third week of March 2001, in weather quite cold, I saw two turkeyvultures over Essex. Nearly every time I pass through Essex, weather permitting, I seeraptors or vultures.

On 31 March 2001, I saw seven turkey vultures circling and diving playfully ateach other in Essex. They pointed into the wind and hovered high above me forseveral minutes, all the while gaining altitude, then three of them headed upwindtoward Hog Island, while the other four swept downwind, playing tag, then turnedupwind and followed the three. All of them seemed to be enjoying flight.

I understand that this enjoyment of flight is most evident after they cleanthemselves. Vultures spend several hours each day grooming themselves. They bathe

Photo by Michael L. Baird


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in water wheneverpossible, preening theirfeathers, immersingthemselves, shaking andscrubbing for thirty

minutes or more. Afterbathing, they leave the

water and spread theirwings like cormorants todry themselves in thesunlight. (They alsospread their wings onsunny mornings, becausetheir bodies cool duringthe night, so they usesunlight to raise theirtemperatures to daytimelevels.) Once dry, theyoften soar into the sky

and play tag orfollow-the-leader.Sources agree withmy conclusion thatthey seem to enjoyplaying games.

14 July 2001,

Newburyport, MA. Ascorcher of a day.

While walking in thesouth end of town, Inoticed two largebirds on the grassinside the Old HillBurial Ground. Theylooked much toolarge to be crows, soI got my binocularsfrom the car andtook a closer look.They were turkey

vultures. One wasfeeding on a smallcarcass. The other

was trying to get its

But on the wing, theyre magnificent.Photo by Michael L. Baird

A face only a mother could love and Moms no beauty queen.Courtesy of Earthplace, the Nature Discovery Center (photographer unknown)


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share, but whenever it got too close, the feeding one snapped at it and drove it away.The carcass was lying under a heavy tree canopy, so it seems unlikely that the

vultures could have spotted it from the air. Turkey vultures have very keen vision andhearing, but to detect carrion concealed by tree canopies, they rely on their sense ofsmell. Olfactory lobes in turkey vulture brains are well developed, three times larger

than those in the black vulture, which hunts by sight alone. Turkey vultures can detectcarrion odors as faint as a few parts per trillion, and can pinpoint the direction from

which the odors come.Turkey vultures eat carrion when available, but they also eat grass, leaves, and

seeds. Their diet can be half vegetable matter. They regurgitate pellets, odorless andsmaller than a chicken egg, which consist of fur, bones, and indigestible vegetation.Their droppings and pellets are clean and carry no disease. In fact, the turkey vulture'sdigestive system kills bacteria and viruses ingested through infected carrion. TheTurkey Vulture Society (See) is investigating this. In particular, the species' ability todisinfect rodent carcasses carrying the Hantavirus is being studied. This work couldprove significant to medical research on humans.

A couple stopped their car and came over to ask me what species the birdswere. The woman said that she and her husband hadn't realized there were threebirds, because the cemetery wall had blocked their view of the ones on the ground.The vulture they had first spotted was perched on a tall inclined gravestone some fiftyfeet uphill from the other birds. It was so motionless that I hadn't noticed it. An idealphoto-op, and my 35-mm camera was on long-term loan to a friend.

After a pleasant chat, the couple left. I stayed for another hour or more, andduring all that time the more aggressive vulture continued to peck at the carcass.Occasionally it lifted the carcass into the air, and I could see that it was somewhere insize between a squirrel and a woodchuck.

A neighborhood couple arrived home, and the man saw the vulture on thegravestone spread its wings. He called excitedly to his wife, and they ran over to the

wall. All three vultures took flight, so I headed over to identify the carcass. As I did,one vulture circled back and made a pass over me, flying low enough to give mepause. That close, they look quite intimidating, but I probably had nothing to worryabout. Were I to corner a turkey vulture, and it considered me a threat, I'm told itmight roll over and play dead. At worst, it would hurl foul-smelling vomit at me.

The other two vultures had perched on gravestones well uphill. The one thathad "buzzed" me perched in the top of a dead tree.

I found that they had been feeding on a squirrel. There was so little left of it,basically skin and bone, that I'm surprised the vulture had continued to peck at it for solong.

The vultures had let me approach within fifty feet of them, and my binocularsare powerful, so for the first time I got a clear look at the species naked red heads andnecks.

25 July 2001. Another hot, humid day. Late this morning I saw a lone turkeyvulture turning tight spirals directly over the center of Manchester-by-the-Sea. The birdwas flying fairly low, fifty to one hundred feet above the ground. The flock of crows


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that resides downtown ignored the vulture. Had it been a hawk, the crows wouldhave mobbed it. Apparently vultures represent no threat to crows, at least not to thisflock. On 16 April 2002 I saw a vulture working the Essex County Club golf course (inManchester-by-the-Sea) at treetop level. A lone crow harassed it.

On 1 August 2001, I saw a turkey vulture soaring over hayfields and pastures

along Route 133 in Essex. It was attacked by a small black bird having the size andfan-shaped tail of a grackle. The "grackle" was too far away for me to be sure of myidentification, and by the time I broke out my binoculars, both birds were gone.

Vultures may sometimes prey on the nestlings of this species, though it's also possiblethat the "grackle" mistook the vulture for a raptor.

On 8 March 2003 I saw a turkey vulture trying to perch on a telephone or powerline that spans a Route 128 bridge in Beverly. The bird appeared to be havingdifficulty. Later that day I saw one wheeling over Essex Greenbelt, then it sweptdownwind on a straight line and out of sight.

About noon on 9 March 2003 I saw a lone turkey vulture wheeling over SchoolStreet near the Manchester Athletic Club. About 2PM I saw another (or the same one)over Essex Greenbelt. It circled awhile, then swept southerly out of sight on a straightdownwind glide.

At the time of this writing (July 2003) Ive seen few turkey vultures this summer,compared to past years. In checking my notes, I find that, through September of 2001,I had seen very few raptors, and far fewer turkey vultures than usual. Very few blueherons (great or little), as well. Lots of great egrets, few snowies.

I did lose well over a month to heart surgery and post-surgical complications inAugust and September 2001, and may have missed many good sightings, but severalbird-watcher friends have borne out my conclusions. One said he saw about thirtyegrets feeding in a close grouping. He believes they were snowy egrets. Ive never

seen that many snowies in an entire summer, so I suspect they were great egrets.The current paucity of vulture sightings may be due to my concentration on

White and Black Beaches over the past year. Turkey vultures dont seem to spendmuch time along the shore, no doubt because the cold ocean water generates little inthe way of thermal updrafts. There are always exceptions, though. On 13 April 2002 Isaw a turkey vulture come in over the sea a half-mile out from White Beach, circlingas it was swept downwind and out of sight to the northwest. I wonder what it wasdoing that far out to sea?

Turkey Vulture Attacks Pigeon?

There's a bridge in my town, at School Street, which spans Route 128. Pigeonsroost under this bridge year-round, and nest there in spring. Whenever I pass over the


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School Street bridge, I usually see thirty or forty pigeons perched on a power cablehigh above the bridge. I used to wonder whether, perched there in numbers, high andin the open, they might make a prime target for raptors. Of course, the power linegives them a good vantage point, from which they can escape danger by swoopingdown under the bridge and onto a ledge. But this can be as hazardous as a raptor

attack if an eighteen-wheeler with a big box comes barreling under the bridge at thatmoment. Even a near miss will snatch pigeons out of the air like a wind-tunnel anddash them onto the roadway, into the path of oncoming vehicles.

On an overcast winter day (4 December 2000) I was driving home, justapproaching the west end of the School Street bridge, when I saw a large dark birdabout twenty or thirty feet above my car, in close pursuit of a pigeon. Compared to itsattacker, the pigeon looked very small. The pigeon was flying very strangely, its bodyalmost vertical, as if it had just taken off. A few light-colored feathers were floatingdown through the air. The big dark bird was below the power and telephone cables,and so close to its quarry that I suspect it may have delivered a strike to the pigeon justbefore I came along.

Unable to brake (vehicle behind me), I had only a second to take in the scenebefore the birds passed overhead and out of windshield view. By the time I pulledover and got out of the car, they had disappeared behind some trees. While I wasstanding there, hoping the vulture would reappear, the resident flock of pigeons camefrom somewhere east of me and approached the power cable. Clearly agitated, theymade several circling passes before finally perching. I suspect that the pigeon I hadseen being pursued was one of their number, and that the attack had come while thepigeons were perched on that cable.

The attacking bird had very dark undersides, and I estimated the wingspan atsix feet. The only raptors in my area having dark undersides and wingspans of six feet

or greater would be immature bald eagles, and they have considerable whitishcoloration on their undersides. I noticed no light coloration at all. Nor did I notice ared head and neck, but the bird could have been an immature turkey vulture.

I'm well aware that turkey vultures are scavengers, but I believe this is thespecies I saw. They don't have the long curved talons of raptors, but they do havelarge feet, fairly long sharp claws, and beaks designed for tearing flesh. Were a turkey

vulture hungry enough, might it not try to take live prey? One thing for certain, innature nothing is certain.

I did some research. Burton and Burton gives the turkey vulture's diet asmainlycarrion. They also catch small live animals, such as mice and young birds. They havea bad reputation (unsubstantiated, thinks the author of the Burton and Burton entry)for killing livestock. It's said that their beaks aren't strong enough to harm a large livinganimal.

According to The Turkey Vulture Society, "The turkey vulture lacks strength in itstiny grasping claws, and does not and cannot kill. Also, its beak has neither the shapenor strength to tear into a fresh carcass. On the other hand, the black vulture is oftenaggressive, can kill small animals, and will even attack horses, cows, and people."This last strains my credulity, but let's suffice it to say that black vultures can kill as well


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as scavenge. Sometimes turkey vultures are blamed for the actions of black vultures.[Peterson's illustrations show turkey vulture claws and beak to be about the same asthose of black vultures -- so do the photographs in the Audubon Society book, exceptthat the turkey vulture's claws don't show.]

So far as I know, black vultures have not yet extended their range into

Massachusetts. Besides, they have white patches on their undersides, near thewingtips, and I saw no such patches. I believe what I had observed was a very hungryturkey vulture attempting to kill a pigeon.

I drive across the School Street bridge almost daily, sometimes several times aday, and for twelve days after the attack, I saw no pigeons on that power cable. Thismay have been due to the cold weather -- December of 2000 proved frigid -- but Ibelieve it was just as cold on the day of the attack. Besides, we had a brief warmspell, and still I saw no pigeons on the wire. On the sixteenth, a mild day, there were adozen pigeons on the wire at 8 AM.

By January of 2001 there were thirty or forty pigeons perched there most timeswhen I passed. They must feel safe; perhaps the turkey vulture made a late southwardmigration. Of those vultures that do migrate, it's said that many head south with the

Autumnal Equinox and return in the spring on the Vernal Equinox, often on the exactday.

On 14 December 2001 I saw about a hundred pigeons perched above theSchool Street bridge. Assuming they're all part of the same community that nestsunder that bridge, they must have raised a bumper crop of squabs during 2001.There were almost no pigeons on the wire over the School Street bridge this spring(2003). I don't recall seeing many all winter, though an acquaintance who shares myinterests claims that the pigeons perch on that wire primarily during winter. But if theynested successfully this past spring, why did I not see the results? I went down onto

Route 128 under the bridge to see whether someone had screened off the nestingareas with hardware cloth or the like, but I saw nothing. There were only three or fourpigeons under the bridge. There were still only three to four pigeons on the wirethrough 16 August 2003.

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