Turkey Vulture

These blackish, eagle-like birds, are often seen soaring high above the Foothills in wide circles. From the ground, these creatures that are  incorrectly called “buzzards” by some people, are a beautiful sight to behold. Close up, it’s another story.

Soaring  scavenger

The scavenger is odoriferous, hunch-backed, bald-headed, wrinkled and red in the face with a hooked nose and beady, buggy eyes.  But, it is these  adaptations that make it so suitable to perform its life’s work of eating carrion and scavenging.

The featherless head allows allows for proper sanitation after it thrusts its beak deep into a rotting carcass. Without feathers to hide bacteria, the sun can kill the germs as the bird suns itself.  Its astonishing eyesight allows it to pickup visual messages from other vultures in locating a carcass.  A vulture’s sense of smell   helps it locate carrion hidden under dense brush and trees. The  ultimate soaring machines, their long, sleek wings effortlessly suspend them in the air.   These summer residents migrate by day in spectacular flocks. When leaving in October for Mexico, they tower upward in a giant spiral.

Hawk or vulture?

Hawks such as the Harris hawk and the red-tailed hawk look similar to a vulture when they are in the air.  But it’s easy to tell the difference, hawks glide and flap their wings fairly often. Vultures primarily glide.