Wednesday, April 23, 2014

The Back Yard Vultures

Almost every day a group of Turkey vultures cruises over our neighborhood. Jove knows where they roost, but just about every day I can look up and see at least one of them scoping out the local territory looking for some corpse to eat. Today I was taking it easy on a cool afternoon looking for other birds to photograph. But the other stuff...the crows and the song birds and such just didn't want to make an appearance. I was just about to go put the camera away when one big vulture came swooping low over the tops of the local houses. And I got just a few shots before he soared away.

The first pass over the yard. I wasn't sure he was going to double back, but he did.

This time I was ready and got some halfway decent photos.

I kept the lens pointed at him as he continued to pull away.

I reckon he was looking for anything edible.

And this was the last image I captured as he vanished behind the rooftops.

4 comments:

Vicki said...

Those are hard shots to capture. You did very well. I'm impressed.

They look like large birds. (We don't have vultures here.)

James Robert Smith said...

They're huge birds. Enormous.

What fills in for scavenger birds in Australia?

Vicki said...

Ravens and crows. Carrion is also a major diet item of our largest raptor, the Wedge-tailed Eagle.

James Robert Smith said...

Ravens and crows. We have those, although ravens are a threatened species in some areas. Eagles we have, too. And Bald eagles are notorious scavengers, but I don't think it's their first choice of menu items.