Vultures
I feel compelled to share a link to an article I enjoyed reading today: Showing Vultures A Little Love. I think vultures are neat, but I don’t think many people do. I’m always surprised when people react negatively when I tell them I rehab raccoons (they are so adorable I can’t figure out how anyone could dislike them), but vultures are even more reviled because they are “ugly” and – this is the part I really don’t get – eat dead animals. I LIKE vultures for eating dead animals. As far as I’m concerned, they are doing me a service; the fewer dead animals lying around to rot on the ground the better. Eat up, vultures!
Taken earlier this year in Occoquan, VA
I got to meet our local vulture rehabber a while ago, which was awesome. Weirdly, it was the day of the earthquake. I was on the schedule to transport wildlife that day, but then the day got really, really strange, what with the earthquake and everything, but I couldn’t see any reason not to deliver the birds I had been asked to transport before the earthquake, so I picked them up from the animal hospital and drove out to Manassas and had a long talk with the rehabber, Mattie, who takes just about any animal, particularly “unloved” species, but specializes in vultures. She was really cool and since then I’ve loved vultures even more. There are a couple of articles you can read about her if you are interested.
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Taken a few years ago in Harper’s Ferry, WV
Turkey vulture, taken earlier this year
Since I’m babbling about vultures anyway, here are some other wildlife pictures I’ve taken recently. They are all from Occoquan National Wildlife Reserve.
Anyone know what this one is? I can’t find it in my bird book, probably because I’m a noob.
With that, I’m going to eat dinner… a very happy Fourth of July to my fellow Americans!
radioactivegan Said,
July 3, 2012 @ 10:45 pm
I love vultures – I have since the first time I saw The Jungle Book. That’s an interesting article; thank you for sharing it.
Mom Said,
July 4, 2012 @ 11:28 am
Do you mean what is the bird with lots of stripes? If he was small, he may be a type of Sparrow.
renae Said,
July 4, 2012 @ 11:57 am
He was bigger than a sparrow. He’s sitting on a post that is coming out of a marsh and I think he might have a tiny fish in his beak, so he may be a bird that likes water and may fish. I think part of the problem is he might be a juvenile and might look different than he will when he’s all grown up, except I think the picture was taken too early in the season for him to be very young and he seems to know what he’s doing. He didn’t have any parents around either.
The one under him is an osprey.
renae Said,
July 4, 2012 @ 12:08 pm
Now I think he might be a merlin and he might be a she.
Jes Said,
July 10, 2012 @ 1:04 pm
You just stole my heart, Renae–a third of my thesis is on vultures, including a series written in the voice of a vulture. Your pictures are stunning & I’m going to have to look that vulture rehabber up, see if I can meet her and spend some time doing what she does. All the material I’d get!
renae Said,
July 10, 2012 @ 1:29 pm
Jes, your thesis sounds a lot more interesting than most theses! If you do end up contacting Mattie (there’s contact info at the end of the article about her at http://www.wildliferescueleague.org/pdf/Winter2007Vol25No5.pdf, and although that article is old, I know at least the phone number is correct) and coming up to visit her, let me know. She’s not terribly far from me and you’d have a place to stay if you needed one.
ks Said,
December 22, 2015 @ 11:07 pm
Great post! Vultures are wonderful animals. It is believed that black vultures mate for life, which is pretty neat. As for the photo of the unidentified bird sitting on the post, it looks like a species of sparrow, or a bird very similar to sparrows. You can tell by the shape of the beak, the shape of the feet and the white stripes on its face. The feet are delicate “perching” feet (not strong, prey-grabbing feet), and the beak is straight, short, and somewhat thick (best for crushing seeds, but also useful in picking up bugs and other small goodies).
Merlins’ facial marking are quite different and most notably, their beaks have a sharp, downward hook (great for picking meat off of prey). My guess is that your picture is of a Baird’s sparrow. The facial markings look especially similar, but who knows!
And thank you so much for helping all the wonderful animals 🙂