Vanishing Vultures

Few birds elicit more contradictory responses than the turkey vulture. Spot one soaring gracefully overhead and you'll likely respond with, “Ooh, look at that! Isn't it stunning?” Spot one alongside the road, feasting an a dead carcass and you're more likely to respond with, “Yuck! What a revolting sight.”

The turkey vulture is widespread across the US, and is an important bird. Like the dung beetle and the maggot, the vulture plays a major role in nature's recycling system. Still, we'd much rather watch a songbird daintily peck at seeds than see a vulture picking over the decaying carcass of roadkill.

They have eyesight nearly as acute as eagles and can spot carrion from high in the air—although they are also one of the few birds who have a keen sense of smell. Their version of an enticing fragrance, however, does not emanate from flowers. And vulture babies are even more revolting—they eat their parent's regurgitated spoiled food: tainted vulture vomit!

Vultures are big birds... well, really quite smaller than the resident feathered friend on Sesame Street. They are nearly the size of an eagle, with a wingspan of almost six feet. When gliding overhead they can be mistaken for a hawk. Years ago I was easily confused, but slowly learned to readily distinguish between them. The underside of a vulture's wings is dark, while a hawk's is nearly white. While the hawk's head is large and fierce looking, a vulture's head is tiny and naked, and almost appears headless at a distance. And if the glider emits any kind of shrill call, it's a hawk. Vultures are very quiet birds—as if not wanting to attract attention to their repellent sight.

On the ground the turkey vulture—as its name suggests—resembles a wild turkey, with both of them sporting a bare pate. The turkey's baldness helps it to cool down, while the vulture's naked noggin allows him to dive deeply into the innards of his meal and not have to clean feathers later (or, heaven forbid, have to endure the bad smell and unsightly appearance of crusted feathers).

The resemblance between them, however, stops with the bald head. If the bird has a neck, it's a turkey. The vulture's tiny bean needs little neck to support it. If it walks pertly along, it's a turkey. Vultures hop and waddle like a drunkard. But if you see the bird has whitish legs, you know it's a vulture—they have the revolting habit of squirting their liquid feces on their legs, because the evaporating liquid cools them. But then again, maybe they prefer the aroma.

I don't think many people would want a vulture for a pet. It makes me wonder, given that they are are an exception in birddom with their sense of smell, how they can stand their own stink. But I guess that's true of all of us. The other guy's farts always smell worse than ours.

Another interesting fact about the turkey vulture is that it has been slowly migrating northward in the US. A recent article in Living Bird magazine from Cornell University's Lab of Ornithology describes this phenomenon. A century ago Virginia was the northern extent of their territory. Now they can be seen well up into Canada. Why the movement north? Researchers are not certain. There could be several possibilities. First, climate change is forcing many species to head towards cooler territory. Second, some birders think the overpopulation of deer in the Middle Atlantic states and New England might be drawing the vulture in, as cars create an increasing number of deer carcasses roadside. Third, half a century ago DDT was widely used in the South, causing many birds to weaken. Now that southern vultures are more healthy and more populous, some might be foraging farther north for carrion.

Fourth, southern farms have slowly transformed from small livestock homesteads—where dead cattle were left in the field to the vultures and other scavengers—to today's large vegetable enterprises, with few cattle. Additionally, contemporary farmers can use their tractor to rapidly bury an expired cow or call the local rendering plant, rather than labor for a couple of days digging by hand, as the old timers had to do. And what busy farmer was going to be able to afford that much time, just to bury a useless cow?

Several years ago I had a neighbor tell me that he feared for the survival of the turkey vulture—although he called them buzzards. Now that farmers were no longer leaving dead livestock in the fields, he worried that vultures would become extinct. I was rather skeptical of his concern—partly due to my ignorance of the fact that farmers were now properly disposing of dead animals, but also because scavengers (think coyotes and crows, as well as vultures) are very resourceful creatures. Now that I know better, thanks to Cornell, I could console my neighbor by telling him, “It's OK, George, they're doing fine, they're just headed north.” In fact, the turkey vulture opportunistically dines on many other dead critters than cows and deer. I think there will be plentiful roadkill around here to keep the vulture soaring overhead (“Ooh! Isn't that stunning?”) for some time yet.