There are ten vultures in my cypress trees and two atop the poplar. (And one of them appears to be…pointing! :eek: )
I’ve seen one or two before in the fields surrounding my house, but never this many and never this close. I know they’re only supposed to be interested in dead things, but should I be afraid for my dogs and chickens? The chickens are completely enclosed and the dogs don’t go outside unattended much, but this is really creepy. Are there any vulture experts or people with vulture experience out there who can tell me why this is happening? What do they want?
Black vultures are known to be community roosters, which is rather unsettling to those who are near the roost, since they aren’t exactly the best neighbors (anything that craps down it’s leg to cool off isn’t what you want to invite to a party). If you aren’t in the south then they may be turkey vultures, and they tend only to express interest in a previously dead item, if you still feel a pulse you don’t have to worry.
waits for Brachyrhynchos to come with a more complete explanation *
Neither Black Vultures nor Turkey Vultures are a significant threat to animals as large as dogs or chickens. Both species, especially Black Vultures, occasionally will kill weak or defenseless animals, and might kill a sickly chick or an ill puppy that wasn’t able to move very fast. But this would be exceptional.
They probaly just find your tree a convenient place to roost while they are digesting or just hanging out. Do you perchance live near the City Dump?
Or maybe you have a gas leak.
More about vultures can be found in my Staff Report:
Well, the illustrations in my handy Peterson Field Guide to Western Birds initially led me to think they might be Black Vultures since they have grey heads. But the “immature” Turkey Vulture pictured in the book appears to have a head more like the Black Vulture (which supposedly isn’t common to my region), so I’m thinking maybe what I’ve got here is a family of young Turkey Vultures.
I don’t live near a dump per se, but it’s a semi-rural area with a lot of cows and land developers competing for supremacy. Also, no gas leaks as far as I know. (But that’s something else to worry about…)
My dogs and chickens are all fairly large and very healthy, so for now I’m going to believe the vultures are harmless unless my pets and I stop breathing, but still… These are scary critters.
Oh, and Doghouse Reilly: I’ve got a lot of things I need to get done this week, and I’ll probably need my soul for at least a few of them, so we’ll just call that “Plan B” for now. But thanks.
If you do live in a rural area and there is any large scale livestock farming going on around you, you may be the proud owner of a convenient perch for the buzzard to sit and wait for the manure spreaders to go out. Farmers around here commonly just throw dead small pigs in the spreader. The dead piglets end up out on the field where, in this area in winter, the Bald Eagles subsist on them. Once the rivers freeze up eagles move inland and start looking for manure trails in the fields. It may be the same thing with your birds of ill omen. They are carnivores but they are not predators.
Ohhhhh. OK. The dogs are strictly indoor diners but, unless it’s raining, the chickens’ food is always on the ground outside their coop in an enclosed pen. (There’s chicken wire on all sides and across the top to protect them from hawks and other predators, but they can still get plenty of fresh air and sunshine.) I had to check on them late last night because I heard them making their scared noise, and I saw something fly away from the pen. I had thought it was a hawk, but maybe it was a vulture looking for food. I’ll try putting the chickens’ food inside the coop–I’d be doing that soon anyway since it’s turning colder–and see if that helps. Thank you–all of you–for the input. (Although I’m not sure I really needed to hear about the small dead pigs. :eek: )
Just to update, at the moment we seem to be vulture-free since the braver (if not the brighter) of the two dogs went out and chased them away. Knowing birds, though, they’ll probably be back.
Plenty of Turkey Vultures where I live and I often see large numbers of them hanging out in dead snags. If you really want to see something disturbing, go check them out first thing in the morning.
Apparently, when the sun first comes up, the vultures will face the rising sun and spread out their wings to absorb the heat (quite an impressive scene). Considering that they like old, dead trees, it is a little disconcerting to be driving down the road at dawn and see a dead tree full of vultures all facing the rising sun with their wings fully spread. It looks like some post-apocalyptic nightmare.
Heh. Try having them pick the brand-new downtown highrise courthouse as their favorite perch (happened here in Orlando - there were significant warm-air updrafts in the downtown area, and vultures use them to soar).
I used to get lots of calls at the conservation office from very upset lawyers: the birds would land on the ledges, tap at the windows, fight with each other, and stare into the windows at the people inside.
I always wanted to call it ‘professional courtesy’, but never had the guts to say it over the phone.
Every spring the vultures return to Hinkley Hollow, Ohio. It was usually on the TV and I sort of remember seeing shots of dozens of them roosting around.
As I remember things the denizens of Hinkley Hollow had a large pancake cookout to celebrate this event.
Check and see if any of your neighbors are making suspiciously large breakfasts. If so you may be in Hinkley Hollow.
Vulture Update: Maybe they were after the chicken feed, or maybe my trees were just a rest stop, but I’m pleased to say that, aside from an occasional lone vulture passing through, they haven’t been back in a few days.
True, but if they come back on Thursday, I hope they won’t mind settling for a nice Cup o’ Noodles. No turkey here.
And now that you mention it, SandyHook, I do occasionally give the chickens a few pieces of blueberry pancake with their breakfast, and now suddenly the vultures have shown up… Coincidence?!!!
I was out in the back yard getting the barbecue ready for guests one time when I hear a “whoosh, whoosh, whoosh” overhead and looked up to see a turkey vulture hovering. He had gotten the scent of my fire and the odor coming from the grease on the grill. Vultures watch other vultures and as soon as he came my way others followed. Soon there were several perched on the roof and around in nearby trees.
How would you like to go for a meal at someone’s house only to be greeted by a bunch of vultures?
screech-owl, vultures (actually buzzards) are famously attracted to the old courthouse building in downtown Miami (FL), too! They fly south for the winter (perhaps attracted by all those elderly “snowbirds” from the Northeast?), and just ride the thermals for hours. And yes, the lawyers, et al. have been known to complain that the buzzards will bring back their hideous scraps of garbage and dead things to munch on, while perching on the graduated steps at the top of the tower, where the priciest office space is.
Legend has it the buzzards are the souls of the city’s dead trial attorneys and judges revisiting their old haunts…
Actually, ‘buzzards’ are hawks, IIRC, correctly referring to the buteos [soaring hawks like the Red-shouldered Hawks], as opposed to the accipters [‘fast’ hawks like the Cooper’s Hawk]. The word ‘buzzard’ has been misused in the US as a general term for the New World vultures.
As much as we’ve been trying to get people to use the correct term (similar to the “Smoky the Bear” vs. “Smoky Bear” campaigns), it’s not high on the ornithologists’ priority list.
Now I’m confused. Since everybody commonly referred to them as “buzzards,” everyone was apparently wrong – but that doesn’t settle the question of whether the birds are vultures or buteo-type hawks.
Some call them “turkey buzzards” or “turkey vultures” – does that help to identify them?
And I always thought it was “Smokey the Bear”. So, am I a hopeless case, or what?
Also, no gas leaks as far as I know. (But that’s something else to worry about…)