I just saw a big old Turkey vulture in a huge tree a yard away from mine. Kinda big. Kinda weird looking. And, considering I live right downtown, in a city of 365,000, it’s kinda odd too!
I’m going to buy a lottery ticket!
Several are almost constantly in view out my window, along with Black Vultures.
I think of them like Canada geese. When I was a kid in the seventies, I remember a bit of a sense of awe when they first showed up at the lake.
Now the little poop machines are everywhere.
The first ones I saw in the Twin Cities were outside of my work. I worked in a tall building next to a large park in the city of Bloomington, and they loved just hanging out in the updrafts against the building. Like a bald eagle, so powerful and majestic. But like a bald eagle where somebody shoved it’s head in to a vat of boiling oil. Dear gawd they are scary ugly.
There is an area north of Hayward Wisconsin that has a heavy deer population and a lot of car/deer accidents, and I’ve noticed that the vultures are there all of the sudden. Smart birds.
Nature hates an underutilized niche.
Think maybe it knows something you don’t?
Clearly a messenger!
In the US, what appears to be a raptor in the sky is more than likely a turkey vulture, they are very numerous and conspicuous. They are easily distinguished at a great distance, as their soaring wings are on a dihedral, that is, forming a very shallow V, rather than being held out at 180 degrees like a true raptor. The other vulture species, Black Vultire, mostly in the south, has the same characteristic, but with white wing tips.
Heck, turkey vultures love south Florida, some are year round in Miami and a LOT of them migrate there in the fall. Here’s a couple of articles.
I see them as a sign of spring where I live.
And unlike many bird species here, their numbers seem to be increasing.
You can often see them in and around McGill university.
One difference between a Black Vulture and a lawyer? The vulture doesn’t take off his wing tips at night.
Why wouldn’t vultures like cities and suburbs?
People = cars.
Cars = roadkill.
Roadkill = vulture smorgasbord.
I’m always spotting dead possums, raccoons, cats, deer and armadillos in the road. Every one of them is a gift from man to the local vultures.
I once saw some turkey vultures flying around in a circle like you do in a movie , when a neighbor asked me if I saw her cat I knew why the birds were there. It was an old cat that went off to die , I found the body right were the
turkey vultures were flying . 
March 15th is the traditional date when the turkey vultures return to Hinckley, Ohio.
The photo of the female vulture that has “imprinted” on humans is a bit eerie. I would not want to have one following me around the yard.
Snoopy got some mileage out of that:
They also keep the baby bumblebee population under control.
I miss the vultures on Ancon Hill more than many other things about living there in Panama. Always lots of birds and lots of behaviors.