Black Vultures

We saw a big black vulture in the neighborhood park several months ago. He was sitting in the pedestrian bridge railing and fanning his wings. He was by himself and then flew off in to the tree drying out his huge wing span. I took a photo of him and uploaded it in to the Merlin Bird app to verify that was the bird we saw. And it was. Yesterday we took a walk in the neighborhood along the sidewalks of the main streets. Behind one of the row of shops was a dumpster. We also heard a lot of squawking and turned to see a huge flock of black vultures sitting on top of, in front of and everywhere else. We couldn’t figure out what exactly they were after. We have seen them by the road feasting on road kill - with one or two keeping an eye out for interlopers while all the rest indulge. All we know is that they were definitely interested in something and we didn’t want to get too close not knowing what they might do. It’s sort of creepy and interesting at the same time. Obviously the dumpster needed to be emptied because it had a smell about it. And being the holiday season it probably hadn’t been attended to for several days. I’m glad it was no where near where we live, but it was right in an inhabited neighborhood. Too close for comfort! 

The Black Vulture

We always thought they were called turkey buzzards. We were walking through the neighborhood park when out of the blue this huge black bird flew on to the fence right in front of us. Of course I whipped out my phone and started taking photos - and a video - of him. The wing span was very wide and he looked like he was trying to dry them off - he was holding them out and moving them back and forth. He knew we were there and we were hoping he wouldn’t get any ideas and start coming towards us. After a bit he flew up in to the tree branch with a whopping whooshing noise. He stayed up there for quite some time, still holding his wings out. A while ago I had downloaded the Cornell Lab Merlin bird app. You can learn about and identify a bird by simply listening to the song or you can upload a photo and it will tell you all about it. So I uploaded one of the images of the bird and it immediately came back as a black vulture. It said they soar in flocks often with other hawks - which we have also frequently seen in the park. But this one was alone. They like roadkill and dumpsters. I suppose we should be thankful someone does. Anyway, it was a treat to see this huge raptor so close up. You never know what you might run in to.