Look alive!
May 20, 2020 18:26:48 #
Things have been grey, damp & kind of dead around here lately. This guy & 9 or 10 of his buddies led me to a young deer on the hill side near one of the ponds.
These turkeys earn their keep!
These turkeys earn their keep!
May 20, 2020 18:33:01 #
Fantastic profile shot in excellent light!
Every spring 10 - 15 turkey vultures cruise over my large apartment complex around 9 a.m. I encourage my 12-pound dog with the same words as your delightful title
Every spring 10 - 15 turkey vultures cruise over my large apartment complex around 9 a.m. I encourage my 12-pound dog with the same words as your delightful title
May 20, 2020 18:58:15 #
May 20, 2020 20:46:23 #
Muddyvalley wrote:
Things have been grey, damp & kind of dead around here lately. This guy & 9 or 10 of his buddies led me to a young deer on the hill side near one of the ponds.
These turkeys earn their keep!
These turkeys earn their keep!
Great shot. As Tom, my late friend and co-worker on the farm used to say when we saw a vulture overhead - "keep moving."
Then there was that incident with the flail mower and deer carcasses...the one we were told never to talk about. Vultures were involved in that episode.
Mike
May 20, 2020 21:12:50 #
May 21, 2020 01:48:02 #
May 21, 2020 05:38:32 #
Muddyvalley wrote:
Things have been grey, damp & kind of dead around here lately. This guy & 9 or 10 of his buddies led me to a young deer on the hill side near one of the ponds.
These turkeys earn their keep!
These turkeys earn their keep!
Nice shot Victor
May 21, 2020 07:29:04 #
Well taken shot my friend but still an ugly bird. Lots of them here in Delaware.
-Doc
-Doc
May 21, 2020 08:46:43 #
Muddyvalley wrote:
Things have been grey, damp & kind of dead around here lately. This guy & 9 or 10 of his buddies led me to a young deer on the hill side near one of the ponds.
These turkeys earn their keep!
These turkeys earn their keep!
nice shot of your buddy, victor....where is the deer?
May 21, 2020 11:19:41 #
May 21, 2020 11:57:00 #
Great image of a under appreciated bird. Their sense of smell for decomposition is so keen in picking up methane that the gas-line crews watch for them circling overhead as an indication of minute leaks in their piping.
May 21, 2020 12:18:45 #
Thanks everyone for the comments!
"Nine species of vulture can be found living in India, but most are now in danger of extinction[1] after a rapid and major population collapse in recent decades.[2] As recently as the 1980s there were up to 80 million white-rumped vultures (Gyps bengalensis) in India, but today the population numbers only several thousand." Wikipedia
It seems they were giving the sacred cows diclofenac, an anti-inflammatory drug. About 10% of the dead cattle had it in their tissues & it took much less than that to kill of the vultures. Remember DDT? Imagine if the funeral industry relied on Condors & eagles to dispose of bodies.
Vultures played a very important part in the local culture.
1:India's Parsis relied on birds of prey to devour corpses.
2: For the Hindu, cattle are sacred & vultures cleaned up the dead cattle, and there are lots of them, as only a few are killed for meat, the rest just wander around breeding.
As a result of the vultures not being there, this led to an explosion of dangerous wild dog packs and attacks, and a surge in the incidence of rabies.
Corvids also increased with all that carrion. While the vulture's gut is a dead end for pathogens, they live on in other birds & cross infect domestic fowl and for all I know, man & other species.
Did I forget the rats?
Read up on it, it is a good lesson that what man does without careful thought, can seriously backfire.
As for me, I find these birds if not beautiful, beautifully evolved.
"Nine species of vulture can be found living in India, but most are now in danger of extinction[1] after a rapid and major population collapse in recent decades.[2] As recently as the 1980s there were up to 80 million white-rumped vultures (Gyps bengalensis) in India, but today the population numbers only several thousand." Wikipedia
It seems they were giving the sacred cows diclofenac, an anti-inflammatory drug. About 10% of the dead cattle had it in their tissues & it took much less than that to kill of the vultures. Remember DDT? Imagine if the funeral industry relied on Condors & eagles to dispose of bodies.
Vultures played a very important part in the local culture.
1:India's Parsis relied on birds of prey to devour corpses.
2: For the Hindu, cattle are sacred & vultures cleaned up the dead cattle, and there are lots of them, as only a few are killed for meat, the rest just wander around breeding.
As a result of the vultures not being there, this led to an explosion of dangerous wild dog packs and attacks, and a surge in the incidence of rabies.
Corvids also increased with all that carrion. While the vulture's gut is a dead end for pathogens, they live on in other birds & cross infect domestic fowl and for all I know, man & other species.
Did I forget the rats?
Read up on it, it is a good lesson that what man does without careful thought, can seriously backfire.
As for me, I find these birds if not beautiful, beautifully evolved.
May 22, 2020 18:40:34 #
Amazingly designed for the job they do. Super shot, Victor, and I agree with Linda about the light!
May 22, 2020 18:45:19 #
May 22, 2020 22:59:53 #
Dixiegirl wrote:
Amazingly designed for the job they do. Super shot, Victor, and I agree with Linda about the light!
Thank you Donna. I wasn't sure I would even get something usable because it was facing away from me & then it turned right before it flew off.
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