#Cathartes aura

[geopsych]

I saw a turkey vulture sunning itself on a post yesterday.

[haveyouseenthisbirdpoll]

photo source

[snototter]

A turkey vulture (Cathartes aura) spreading its wings in Cuyamaca Mountains, California

by Robyn Waayers

[occasionallybirds]

Look who showed up in my yard!

Turkey Vulture (Cathartes aura)

Dec 16, 2023

Southeastern Pennsylvania

With an American Crow (Corvus brachyrhynchos) in the last photo

[fullfrontalbirds]

Turkey Vulture (Cathartes aura)

© Theresa Edwards

[birdblues]

Albino Turkey Vulture

[haveyouseenthisanimal-irl]

[lazyevaluationranch]

17-03-2024 Vulture.

The turkey vultures spend the winter in Venezuela, fly North along the mainland, and circle in groups above the shoreline. In the air they mostly lock their wings open and glide, not flap. So where the land ends they must circle at the water's edge and wait for the wind to be right to glide across to the islands in a group.

For months there have been no vultures, and then suddenly yesterday the wind opened their way home and the island's whole population is here, all at once. It's like someone found a giant knife switch labeled "Vultures" in a cave and shoved it to "on" with a satisfying "KA-VULTURE" sound.

The house is perched atop a stony ridge. The sun falls on the bare dark glacier-scraped slope behind the house and warms the stone, and from the warm stone a column of warm air rises. The vultures enter this invisible pillar of air and circle around its edges, upwards, upwards, around and above the house on ink-dark wings that glow where the sunlight comes through the edges of the feathers.

Sometimes they leave this air-column and glide over to the next stone ridge, the next invisible column of air, and the next beyond it, the next beyond that. Watching the vultures trace out the locations of the pillars, you get a sense of a whole vast structure of warmth and wind, like some grand invisible temple rising hundreds of meters into the bright brazen sky.

It's always here, I think, the huge columns, the invisible temple the glaciers built, made of air and light. But I can only see its structure when the vultures trace it out for me, like architectural drawings. Glad someone found the KA-VULTURE switch this year.

[aticketplz]

初めてヒメコンドルが飛ぶところを見ました！

@掛川花鳥園

I saw a Turkey vulture flying for the first time!

@Kakegawa Kachoen

[fatchance]

Turkey vultures / aura gallipavo (Cathartes aura). In Sierra Vista, Arizona.

About fifteen turkey vultures are resident in my neighborhood this winter. Long-timers have told me the birds rarely overwintered here until recently. I suspect their presence reflects a phenological shift due to global climate change.

[na-bird-of-the-day]

BOTD: Turkey Vulture

Photo: Jon Cox

"A familiar sight in the sky over much of North America is the dark, long-winged form of the Turkey Vulture, soaring high over the landscape. Most birds are believed to have a very poor sense of smell, but the Turkey Vulture is an exception, apparently able to find carrion by odor."

- Audubon Field Guide

[geopsych]

Also a bunch of these were hanging out at the flower fields, most just huddled in branches but this one was sunning its wings in true turkey vulture fashion.

[triruntu]

#514, a turkey vulture.

Requests for birds are open, updates happen on Thursdays. [project tag] | [kofi] [commissions] Find me on: [twitter]

[snototter]

A turkey vulture (Cathartes aura) scavenges the leg of a carcass in Cayucos, California, USA

by marlin harms

[sitting-on-me-bum]

Turkey Vulture (Cathartes Aura), Ambergris Caye

©Aurore Shirley

[raw-wild]

Turkey Vulture | Kurt Zias