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Turkey Vultures are large dark birds with long, broad wings. Bigger than other raptors except eagles and condors, they have long "fingers" at their wingtips and long tails that extend past their toe tips in flight. When soaring, Turkey Vultures hold their wings slightly raised, making a ‘V’ when seen head-on. [Cornell]
Turkey Vultures are common around open areas such as roadsides, suburbs, farm fields, countryside, and food sources such as landfills, trash heaps, and construction sites. On sunny days, look for them aloft as early as 9 a.m.; in colder weather and at night they roost on poles, towers, dead trees, and fence posts. [Cornell]
This vulture was feeding on a road-kill gray fox just off the side of the road. I was able to get fairly close by parking my car on the opposite side of the road and staying in the car, using it as a blind.
9 Comments
Thanks Janelle. The road I was on was a secondary highway with about one car a minute going past, with a nice breakdown lane to pull over in. I got lucky with this one.
Gorgeous images and bird! I wish I could get this close. I've only caught them on roadkill (dead skunk) once and traffic was such they kept flying away. Grrr :-)
It looks like it has dinner.
Thanks Glen
Nice series!
Conor, I felt bad for the fox, but at least the vulture has a meal.
Poor fox):
Thanks tomato.glasgow, the vulture looks bigger than the fox.
Nice photo