Interim Report #41: Turkey Vulture

"Vulture" has such negative connotations; I hear that they prefer "freelance decomposition facilitator" these days.

The two-toned silhouette of a soaring Turkey Vulture is familiar to just about everyone.  Whether they’re staking out the shoulder of the Mass Pike for fresh roadkill or gliding over the treetops at Quabbin Reservoir in search of dead deer, ominous-looking Turkey Vultures have become fairly commonplace in the Commonwealth.  Far from spreading disease, these efficient necrophages control pathogens by removing bacterial breeding grounds.  It’s incredible to think that, just a century ago, the notion of breeding Turkey Vultures in the Bay State would have been laughable at best.

These enormous scavengers were only rare stragglers in Massachusetts at the dawn of the 20^th century.  Within a few decades, however, they began appearing more and more regularly in the southern parts of Berkshire County – almost certainly the products of an expanding Connecticut population.  The first confirmed nest with young was found in 1954, although there had likely been some breeding activity before that.  Like Black Vultures, Turkey Vultures build no true nest, instead laying their eggs in well-hidden and inaccessible locations such as high rock ledges and piles of fallen trees.  Thus, they can be difficult to confirm.  Even so, there were a couple of confirmations in Atlas 1.

These soaring birds are wide-ranging foragers, so a single pair can spawn a lot of possible blocks during safe dates.  Unlike Black Vultures, which locate their prey primarily by watching other vultures and following them, Turkey Vultures have a highly developed sense of smell.  It’s this super sniffer that allows them to be the first scavengers on the scene at a fresh carcass.  Large numbers of Black Vultures can chase Turkey Vultures away from a meal, so the TUVU’s have become more specialized in finding small prey that can be consumed quickly.  Fortunately for the Turkey Vultures, Black Vultures are still uncommon in Massachusetts, and the Turkey Vultures have profited from Massachusetts’ many standing forests (great for roosting) and extensive roads and small livestock farms (great for foraging). 

Atlas 2 shows that Turkey Vultures are doing pretty well.  They’ve spread to the eastern part of the state, with confirmations as far as Cape Cod.  Again, the number of possible blocks probably gives an overestimation of actual breeding pairs due to the large territories these birds patrol, but it’s still a clear expansion.  Unlike their smaller Black Vulture cousins, Turkey Vultures are not very aggressive, and they almost never attack livestock.  Unfortunately, cases of mistaken identity and conclusions drawn from finding the birds feeding at a new-killed corpse mean that they face persecution as well.  Their docile nature also makes them sensitive to disturbance at the nest site, which is doubly unfortunate since the reek of carrion tends to attract nest predators.   In your attempts to confirm a Turkey Vulture nest site, use your binoculars and scopes to avoid coming close enough to scare these useful birds away! 

All historic information in the text comes from Mass Audubon's Breeding Bird Atlas 1 or the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's "Birds of North America" site (bna.birds.cornell.edu/bna) unless otherwise stated.

Photo credit: Matthew Kamm. Used with permission.

Comments

[petersteel]

that was really nice to read that...that was really great post.. i ever heard that..