Frye: Beautiful no, but turkey vultures are fascinating

My sister-in-law is not a fan.

There was a passel of us in her minivan one summer day a few years ago, driving I don't recall where, when she spotted a dead whitetail on the side of the road. That elicited the usual “aw, poor thing” response.

Then she noticed something else.

“Ew,” she said, “is that something eating it? What is that?”

It was a turkey vulture, standing beside the carcass and looking every bit like Beaky Buzzard of Looney Tunes fame. Do you remember him, always perched on a limb, patiently waiting for some other cartoon character to expire?

That's how this vulture looked.

As we sped by, we saw it bend down, stick its head into an opening in the deer's gut, grab a piece of intestine in its beak and start walking down the road's edge, foot after foot of bowel uncoiling behind it like soggy bull rope.

“It's got something in its mouth,” my sister-in-law said. “Is that ...? Oh, oh my.”

That's when the dry heaving started.

Turkey vultures are ugly birds, I'll grant you that. At least on the ground. They're sort of a dingy blackish-brown, with a bald, featherless pinkish-red head covered with what looks like beard stubble.

In the sky, though, they soar on air currents with their wings bent in a distinctive shallow “V,” often wobbling from side to side as they make lazy circles. They look majestic then. I always thought so, anyway. Back when I first started hunting I'd often see them, a half-dozen or more at a time, coasting back and forth over a Greene County pasture that everyone knew simply as “the meadow.”

This spring I've noticed a lot of the birds in various places. It turns out that's not surprising.

Doug Gross, an ornithologist with the Pennsylvania Game Commission, said turkey vultures are expanding in number and range across Pennsylvania. The bounty of roadkill along our highways, especially at this time of year, is at least partially responsible.

“As human beings, we're pretty good at killing things, intentionally or otherwise,” Gross said. “And boy, that creates really good feeding grounds for turkey vultures.”

The scavengers that clean that up provide an important “ecological service,” he added.

Turkey vultures are especially good at the job. Gross said the birds can smell carrion, which allows them to find it quickly.

They're well adapted to feeding on it, too. Take their naked head, for example. Gross said the lack of feathers keeps bacteria from getting established when they're poking around in what's admittedly some foul stuff.

They won't win any beauty contests, he admitted. And you don't want to disturb one too close up. Their primary defense, especially when young, is to vomit on potential threats.

“And that's some pretty putrid stuff coming out of a vulture,” Gross said.

But they have a role to play, he added.

“You have to admire them for what they are,” Gross said.

I do. My sister-in-law? I'll get back to you on that.

Bob Frye is a staff writer for Trib Total Media. Reach him at bfrye@tribweb.com or via Twitter @bobfryeoutdoors.

Article by Bob Frye,
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