the vultures are back!

[boxofdelights]

They've probably been back for days already, but this was the first day I was in the right place at the right time to see them. I counted 39, circling, just after 5 p.m.

Comments

[sovay]

I counted 39, circling, just after 5 p.m.

That sounds like a lot of vultures! Congratulations.

[boxofdelights]

They like living in big groups. They spread out a wide sky-net during the day, just close enough so that if one spots a carcass, its neighbors will see it stoop, and their neighbors will see them follow, so they all sit down together for a meal. In the evening, they come together and circle for a little while before settling down to roost in one big tree.

Colorado's turkey vultures winter in South America. They tend to return each spring to the same tree where they were hatched. This colony used to live in two tall pine trees on Mountain Avenue, in one of the most expensive residential neighborhoods in Fort Collins. That yard used to smell of vulture. I am fond of vultures, but that is not a good smell. The owner had the trees cut down a few years ago. The vultures moved a block north and a little ways west.

[sovay]

They tend to return each spring to the same tree where they were hatched.

I didn't know it was that specific. That's lovely.

(Do they smell simply of carrion or is there a personal scent as well?)

[boxofdelights]

Carrion, bird droppings, which can get very ammonia when there are a lot of birds in one place every night, and sometimes vulture vomit. Vultures have very strong stomach acid, as you might imagine, and will vomit to defend themselves when they feel threatened.

The educational vulture at the raptor center, who has lived there for many years, is accustomed to us and vomits very rarely. He gets the same kind of food as the other birds: meat that was fresh when it went into the freezer, and is thawed just before it gets fed. He doesn't smell strongly, but he does smell like a vulture.

The vultures that come in for rehab are likely to vomit at every medical treatment.

[kore]

OMG they're like Narns!

Also I misread that as "educated vulture" and was picturing him having a degree or something.

[jesse_the_k]

We've got a [congregate_noun_unknown] of vultures around half-a-block away. Just the right distance! We can admire their excellent soaring and diving, and not share their pungent air.

If a bunch of crows is a murder, then perhaps a massacre of vultures?