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Turkey Vulture

Cathartes aura

Description:

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]

Habitat:

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]

Notes:

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.

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9 Comments

Tom15
Tom15 11 years ago

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.

JanelleL.Streed
JanelleL.Streed 11 years ago

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 :-)

long-island9
long-island9 11 years ago

It looks like it has dinner.

Tom15
Tom15 11 years ago

Thanks Glen

Glen Marks
Glen Marks 11 years ago

Nice series!

Tom15
Tom15 11 years ago

Conor, I felt bad for the fox, but at least the vulture has a meal.

ConorSheaWing
ConorSheaWing 11 years ago

Poor fox):

Tom15
Tom15 11 years ago

Thanks tomato.glasgow, the vulture looks bigger than the fox.

tomato.glasgow
tomato.glasgow 11 years ago

Nice photo

Tom15
Spotted by
Tom15

Fitzwilliam, New Hampshire, USA

Spotted on Apr 12, 2013
Submitted on Apr 12, 2013

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