By Mary Drew at Pasty Central (Mdrew) on Saturday, August 8, 2009 - 10:54 pm:
The Turkey Vulture is often referred to as a buzzard and gets its name because of the similarity of it's brightly colored head to that of a turkey. Big difference though, is that the vulture can be spotted sitting high up in trees, like the first two shots from John Manninen. It is also common to see them feasting on roadkill along the side of the road or flying high above, surveying the land below for its next meal, like the last photo from Ken Scheibach. That's how it gets the nickname, scavenger, because it's always scanning the ground with keen vision and sense of smell, scavenging for some dead animal to call dinner.
They may not be the prettiest bird around, but they do present an impressive sight when spotted in flight, due to their size the the grace that they exhibit when circling the skies.
By Annie (Cabinfive) on Sunday, August 9, 2009 - 12:11 am:
I've always seen this bird soaring the skies when I've been in the
U.P. I understand their wingspan is something like 6 feet across!
Never seen one up close before.
Looks like he's got some feathers in his beak leftover from his last
meal possibly?
