#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

[spruceefalcon]

somr vultures .. they have some of my favorite wing shapes and their little bald heads are so cute and fun to draw :]

[haveyouseenthisanimal-irl]

[shrub-jay-stickers]

Today’s pixel art bird is the turkey vulture! I took this photo in California, but they can be found all over the US. Turkey vultures are one of my favorite birds. They are very recognizable as they soar through the sky, wings held in a V, wobbling distinctively on the wind, with the back edges of their wings being cream in color. They are easily distinguished from black vultures this way, as black vultures only have lighter colored wing tips.

Their scientific name, Cathartes aura, can translated from Latin to “golden purifier.” This name is very regal for a bird that uses vomit as a defense mechanism and urinate on their legs to cool down, but I think it suits them nonetheless.

Turkey vultures were also the subject of an infamous experiment by John James Aubudon (an ornithological titan) where he incorrectly concluded that vultures did not use their sense of smell to find food, leading to the widespread generalization that birds have a bad sense of smell. This was challenged over the course of many years by the work of people like Betsy Bang, a biologist and medical illustrator, and Dr. Gabrielle Nevitt, a neurobiologist who is still conducting research after some breakthroughs involving seabirds and fishy liquid soaked tampons.

P.S. You can find this pixel art as a sticker here. :)

[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

[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.

[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

[dwmmphotography]

It is Scavenger Sunday, and the Turkey Vulture is the most widespread of the vultures in the Americas. They are also the poster bird for vultures that use their sense of smell to locate food.

[triruntu]

#514, a turkey vulture.

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