My first up - close and personal vulture experience was with Sol . “ Here , Solly hoot , Solly Sol , ” sang a volunteer at a wildlife reclamation center , sweet chatting with the bald - headed scavenger that boasted a 6 - foot wingspan . Sol was an ambassador whose line it was to help volunteers educate people about her own species ’ survival and relationship to man . The name Sol suffer for “ short on flavour , ” though I favor to see the beauty in Sol . That name also refer to the sunbathing affectedness she would fall in the New Mexico gamy desert , bask in the morning sun .
Sol ’s absorbed life began when she and her sibling were just hatchlings , and some boys bird - knapped them from their cave nest . Wildlife rehabbers prove to train them to imprint on another turkey vulture , with the goal of release them back to the wild . This did n’t turn for Sol , and she make too accustomed to humans to be released . She would be in danger of approach the wrong human for a handout , only to be shot .
I question if Sol missed ride the thermal and flock with her family at nighttime . predator are excellent soarers , though they are bit clayey and clumsy on the ground . They make up for it in their good will and ease once they get up in the air . Turkey vulturesforage on carrionindependently throughout the day , and then garner with magnanimous groups of fellow marauder at night .
I match Sol more than 10 old age ago , and I opine of her outstretched wing soaking up the sunshine whenever I watch the V - shaped floating silhouettes that circle the sky . I ’ve been noticing similar shapes in the sky in a big way lately , as I drive down the Kentucky River valley in the early sunup and previous evening . I can expect to see at least 100 huddled in the treetops in their communal roost , overlook the river along a narrow , winding road . strangely , I do n’t see the signature crimson head on these vultures . Many , perhaps all , are bootleg vultures . Karen Lanier
There ’s some fear about the trend of black vulture moving northwards . Some say they are more aggressive , maybe accept beast before they have died . Local farmers ’ anecdotes narrate black vultures pecking at the eyes of newborn cows or lambs or elderly livestock that are not quite get going from this world . As frightful as that sounds , the presence of any type of vulture could also be a clew for the perceptive farmer . Check your fields for newborns , or worse , a abortion that could go unnamed without a scavenger angle you off . predator are pull in to deliver sites for the afterbirth , so they are n’t needfully a drive for concern . However , if youwant to dash them off , employ a loud disturbance to disperse them .
black-market predator have been link up the turkey vultures farther north , a steady crawl that could be due to a variety of factors .
Karen Lanier
Less Food & More Birds
Accessible Food On The Road
As goes the main road , so goes the vulture . scavenger run through what is uncommitted , and route kill is very available . Over the retiring 50 twelvemonth , the main road systems have changed the face of our landscape painting in various ways , disturbing naturalwildlife corridorswhile open up up a roadkill buffet for scavengers . Overpopulation of deer in many orbit is a logical connexion to an increase in black marauder , though cervid make up only a small percent of what marauder are consume . The majority of their food is smaller raging animals , such as opossums , skunk and Marmota monax , along with farm animals , such as pigs , sheep and chickens . Even insects like mayflies and beetles , along with cow manure and rotten pumpkin have been identified in vulture pellet .
Warmer Weather
smutty vultures historically have lived where they can detect food class - round of golf without having to transmigrate very far , mainly South America and Mexico . With lovesome winters , vultures are just one of many wild animals that are recover they can expand their range as the climate changes . Black marauder are now spotted as far Union as New England .
Tag-Along Scavenging
Black vultures do n’t have quite the cutting sense of aroma that turkey vulture do . That sniffer helps them locate the daytime - old deceased , which they choose to rotting , stink flesh . Black vultures follow turkey vultures to a solid food reference and then bully their agency into the feast . They will communicate to their own family appendage where to find the food for thought if some were n’t successful with their own foraging . If you ’ve get to be a magpie , you might as well be an expert opportunist too .
Sol taught me that humans ’ family relationship with vultures is full of misunderstandings . They are not dirty animal at all . In fact , they are equipped with digestive enzymes that can neutralise any vexation of spreading disease . There ’s no pauperism to kill a marauder to protect stock . In fact , it ’s illegal without a Union license . If we can understand that these animals are serving a great purpose in the ecosystem , clean up the cadaver that we ’d rather not deal with , and then find out them graciously glide , we may then realize that they have a complex life of their own to contend with .
