A half century ago, birders eagerly awaited the first of the spring migrants into Maine in March.\u00a0 The arrival of Red-winged Blackbirds, Common Grackles and American Woodcock served as harbingers of spring.\u00a0 Now we have added Turkey Vulture to that list of early migrants into Maine.<\/p>\n
Turkey Vultures are easy to identify in the air as they soar with their wings held in a shallow V.\u00a0 Mostly brownish, Turkey Vultures have distinctive two-toned underwings.\u00a0 The underwings are mostly white except for a black patch on the inner forward part of the wings.\u00a0 Turkey Vultures often seem to rock from side to side as they soar.<\/p>\n
Turkey Vultures are common enough now in Maine during the breeding season that sightings are frequent and unremarkable.\u00a0 However,\u00a0 Ralph Palmer wrote in Maine Birds, published in 1949, that Turkey Vultures are rare in Maine.\u00a0 Palmer lists only 12 records over the period of 1862 to 1944.\u00a0 A Turkey Vulture sighting 50 years ago would have produced great excitement among birders.<\/p>\n
The increase in Turkey Vultures from a rarity to a common breeding species in Maine mirrors a more general pattern of range change.\u00a0 The range of the Turkey Vulture is huge, extending from the Prairie Provinces of Canada to the southern tip of South America. Along the Californian coast and much of the southeastern United States, Turkey Vultures are year-round residents.<\/p>\n
During the 1960s and 1970s, North American populations of Turkey Vultures shifted with western and southern populations declining as New England and Midwest populations began to increase.\u00a0 The over-all population has been increasing at a rate of about 1% per year since 1966.<\/p>\n
Turkey Vultures are scavengers.\u00a0 The lack of feathers on their head is surely an adaptation to maintain cleanliness.\u00a0 Sticking a feathered head in a rotting carcass would certainly foul the feathers.<\/p>\n
Turkey Vultures therefore play a role in removing and recycling dead animals.\u00a0 They will only rarely kill their own vertebrate prey.\u00a0 Even then, the prey has to be defenseless.\u00a0 The Black Vulture, a related species rarely found as found north as Maine, regularly kills defenseless prey, like newborn mammals or birds.<\/p>\n
Even though Turkey Vultures pose no threat to newborn livestock (like Black Vultures), they have been persecuted by farmers.\u00a0 Some farmers destroy Turkey Vultures because of a supposed role in spreading hog cholera bacteria and other livestock diseases.\u00a0 The scientific support for the spread of diseases by Turkey Vultures is very weak.\u00a0 In short, we should let Turkey Vultures be.<\/p>\n
How do Turkey Vultures find carrion?\u00a0 Unlike Old World Vultures and the Black Vulture that rely on sight to find a carcass, Turkey Vultures rely first and foremost on their sense of smell.\u00a0 Turkey Vultures are aerial bloodhounds!\u00a0 The ability to track food by smell means that Turkey Vultures can find food in densely forested areas where the canopy prevents visual recognition of prey.\u00a0 Turkey Vultures do have good vision as well, which certainly can be used to find carrion in open areas.<\/p>\n
The diet of Turkey Vultures is broad.\u00a0 Mammal carrion is the most common food, ranging from mice and shrews to deer and moose.\u00a0 Carrion of livestock is used widely in agricultural areas.\u00a0 For instance, Turkey Vultures in southern Pennsylvania eat mostly dead domestic stock (68% of their diet), including dead pigs and piglets, calves, sheep and kitchen scraps.\u00a0 Other food taken includes dead alligators, turtles, snakes, tadpoles, frogs and even some invertebrates (crickets, shrimp, stranded mussels).<\/p>\n
Turkey Vulture wings are well adapted for thermal soaring.\u00a0 The wings are broad and the primary feathers, the large feathers at the tip of the wing, are slotted to allow rising air to pass over them to generate lift.\u00a0 The thermals that Turkey Vultures use are usually caused by uneven heating of the land.\u00a0 The air above a landscape feature that heats up rapidly expands and rises, to be replaced by air from surrounding cooler areas.\u00a0 In turn, this cool air is heated and then rises as well.\u00a0 This situation results in a sustained vertical wind as long as the sun is high in the sky.\u00a0 Updrafts caused by mountains or large buildings can generate updrafts as well.<\/p>\n
You will usually not see a Turkey Vulture in flight before mid-morning.\u00a0 It takes a while for the sun to generate enough heat to cause thermals to form.\u00a0 Turkey Vultures generally do not ascend to great heights in a wintering or breeding area.\u00a0 It\u2019s harder to pick up the smell of carrion from great heights.\u00a0 During migrations, Turkey Vultures depend on thermals and migrate by gliding rather than flapping.\u00a0\u00a0 Some vultures have been reported at heights greater than three miles high!<\/p>\n
[First published on March 20, 2011]<\/p>\n\n
A half century ago, birders eagerly awaited the first of the spring migrants into Maine in March.\u00a0 The arrival of Red-winged Blackbirds, Common Grackles and American Woodcock served as harbingers of spring.\u00a0 Now we have added Turkey Vulture to that list of early migrants into Maine. Turkey Vultures are easy to identify in the air […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":146,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[420,1],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/mainebirds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/mainebirds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/mainebirds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/mainebirds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/146"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/mainebirds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=381"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/mainebirds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":383,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/mainebirds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381\/revisions\/383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/mainebirds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/mainebirds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/mainebirds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}