Common in the Yoop. They are road kill venison fans.

They are back "for the summer" in large numbers. We have both Turkey and Black Vultures here, and I've watched many fights over dead animals over the years between groups of them. My old dogs were mesmerized by them. My former lawyer had an office down the road that was a favorite place for Black Vultures to get warmed up for the day. Their crap ate the hell out of his gutters and he tried all kinds of things to get them to leave the roof. A scarecrow worked for about a day, and then they had some noisemaker thing that worked about a week. What finally worked was some sort of motion detector that triggered a sprinkler head that sprayed them. Along with spraying them and pissing them off enough to go somewhere else, the water spraying kept the crap they did leave from eating gutters and other metal parts of the roof. And it kept the smell down too.

See them daily in cornfield stubble; close to the road.
Probably some carrion in there.

They are indeed road crews for the city/county/state, see them dragging
things out of the road all the time
for a feast...

Who's a pretty boy?
The Turkey Buzzard

I went back down to southern oregon to visit the inlaws and do a little steel head fishing on the rouge. There was one spot where when the river was low, there would be a little rocky Island. I fished right below that where the Water got deeper and slower.

So i am fishing for an hour or so, I had noticed a bunch of turkey vultures in the branches of the trees on this island chillin. Just before sunset they hop down to the edge of the rocky area.

They sit there as sunset comes. About 20 min before dark one of them hops on a King salmon that got a little two far into the shallows below the island.

Ban 10-12 birds landed on it. One leg hooked in, the other in the water. Wings flapping. They dragged the king all the way up on to the shore. He was long gone by dark.

 
We have them in spades here. They are an integral part of the desert clean-up crew. Ours migrate south in the winter (usually about November) and return in the spring (early this year due to a warmer winter). In this immediate area, they roost up at Yarnell, where they can hop off the edge and catch a thermal to start the day. Once, for some unknown reason, a bunch of them decided to have a convention in our front yard.
 

 

Natures undertaker.

Somebody told me one time that the reason they sometimes seem to appear out of nowhere is that their eyesight is so good that they can be circling so high up that the naked eye can't see them. When they locate their potential next meal, they descend down to a level where they're then visible to us.

quote:

Originally posted by Sunset_Va:

quote:

Originally posted by flashguy:

quote:

Originally posted by clubleaf206:

quote:

Originally posted by olfuzzy:
How old are you? What is your health like?

I'm in good health, thank you. I tried to get them interested in one or all of the neighbor's cats, to no avail.

According to the Wikipedia article on Turkey Vultures, they don't attack live animals. They feed on dead creatures only (unlike some of their relatives).

flashguy

Unfortunately., my neighbor, who raises cattle, tells me, the vultures are bad for going after newborn calves

Some vultures, probably. This thread is about "Turkey Vultures".

flashguy

We have both black vultures and turkey vultures around here on the Gulf Coast. Both are very common.

quote:

Originally posted by TMats:
Somebody told me one time that the reason they sometimes seem to appear out of nowhere is that their eyesight is so good that they can be circling so high up that the naked eye can't see them. When they locate their potential next meal, they descend down to a level where they're then visible to us.

They do appear out of nowhere. It can from none in sight to 20 or 30 circling in a matter of minutes. I have assumed that some see the others circling, and then show up to see if soup's on.

Quite a few hang around my neck of the woods. They perch on electrical poles and eat the many road kill squirrels we have. The silly squirrels around here love to play "chicken" with cars. It seems these vultures have no limit on how long a dead carcass lays around before they stick their head into the stinking thing. Even skunks, although I've heard they know to leave the scent glands alone.

quote:

Originally posted by Yellow Jacket:
I came very close to reducing their population by one about two weeks ago here in Georgia.

They do look big when they're about to bounce off your windshield!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmjdRL6Tmes

P.S. Watch it at 720 HD.

My BIL had one that bounced off the top of his windshield. He was pulled over and got a ticket for "flipping the bird".

CW

Poster children of the democratic party.