Let’s talk turkey
With Thanksgiving coming up, people have birds on their mind. But today we’ll talk about the type of turkey in our skies year-round, and you wouldn’t want one near your table.
Buzz words
People will often mistakenly call turkey vultures buzzards, which is the British name for certain hawks.
Groups of perched vultures are called a wake.
Groups of vultures spiraling upward to gain altitude are called kettles. As vultures catch thermal updrafts they take on the appearance of water boiling in a pot – hence the name kettle. Turkey vultures have been reported by aircraft pilots to rise to as high as 20,000 feet and soar for hours without flapping their wings.
The turkey vulture’s scientific name is Cathartes aura, which is Latin for “cleansing breeze.”
Mess with you
If a turkey vulture is disturbed or harassed, it will throw up on whomever is bothering it. Even the vulture chicks will do this.
No nester
Turkey vultures do not actually build a nest. They are known to nest in very remote, hard to reach locations. Some of the strangest documented nest sites include the floor of an old neglected barn, 6 feet below the ground surface in a rotted stump, and in a dead tree with the nest 14 feet below the cavity entrance.
Turkey vultures have been known to live up to 24 years. The average age is guessed to be around 20 years.
Condors and vultures
The turkey vulture is in the same family (Cathartidae) as the California condor (federally endangered species) and the black vulture, which lives primarily in the south and southeast portions of the U.S.
The California condor (Gymnogyps californianus), with a wingspan of 9.5 feet and weighing up to 25 pounds, is the largest land bird in North America. According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, these big birds historically ranged from California to Florida and Western Canada to Northern Mexico. By the mid-20th century, condor populations had dropped dramatically, and by 1967 the California condor was listed as endangered by the federal government. In 1982, only 23 condors survived worldwide. By 1987, all remaining wild condors were placed into a captive breeding program in an effort to save the species from extinction.
Since 1992, when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service began reintroducing captive-bred condors to the wild, the USFWS and its public and private partners have grown the total free-flying and captive population to more than 500 condors. In 2004, the recovery program reached an important milestone with the first successful chick hatched in the wild. In 2008, more California condors were flying free in the wild than in captivity for the first time since the program began.
Turkey vulture populations are not threatened. The species receives special legal protections under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918. It is illegal to kill or possess them.
Migration
Present year-round in much of the southern United States, but northern birds migrate long distances, some reaching South America. They migrate in flocks and may travel long distances without feeding.
Sources: U.S. Fish and Wildlife, Audobon.org, Kern River Preserve
Illustration by KURT SNIBBE, SCNG SCNG photos