“Fear the vulture, and the vulture will come. Fear nothing, and you are the vulture.”
Suzy Kassem
“By the time I got to kindergarten, I was surprised to find out I was the only kid with a turkey vulture.”
Jean Craighead George
We had an unexpected visitor in our garden (yard!) today. He arrived out of nowhere in a rush and settled on top of the post that holds our weathervane – and that many mistake for a gibbet!
Appropriate – in a way, I suppose…
I was in the studio working on something and my attention was captured by the big shadow that crossed the window. I rushed upstairs to alert The Girl (who was just about to climb into a bath) so that she might also view the bird… before it had flown!
We need not have worried as our visitor was clearly not in any hurry, settling itself in and busying itself preening. I imagine that it had recently frequented the Roadkill Diner and wished to rest a while so as not to suffer from indigestion.
“What the heck is that thing?” – I queried the expert. For sure it was a vulture – but what sort of a vulture?
We rarely see Turkey Vultures in the garden, but if we did they would be easily recognisable by their distinctive red heads. This one – as you can see – was conspicuously lacking any sort of crimson.
Black Vultures are as rare as hens’ teeth in these parts. We did hear tell on the InterWebNet (well – The Girl did!) of just one such feathered friend that had escaped from the Raptor sanctuary in Duncan some three years back…
Could it possibly be? Could it?…
We were reluctantly persuaded that it could not – and that it was almost certainly an immature Turkey Vulture – the which have not yet morphed into red-headedness. Shame!
Pretty big bu**er for a baby, though!
The other birds took a pretty dim view of the visitor and all manner of squawking arose. The little hummingbirds – those most territorial of creatures – bustled up, jaws jutting – spoiling for a fight. The vulture simply ignored them and gave its tail feathers an extra polish.
Finally the crows figured that simply making a racket was not going to get the job done, organised a drawing of straws and nominated the unlucky loser to see the intruder off the premises…
…which it duly did!
Sorry that the images are not any better, by the way. I had only my phone to hand and I had to push it to full zoom to get anything at all. Double-clicking may help to make out some detail…
Today’s image
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