![]() “To us, mercaptans smell horrible, but for vultures they are associated with fine dining.” “Some mercaptans smell like rotting cabbage or eggs,” Cornell writes. It’s so adept, in fact, that in 1938, the Union Oil Company injected an organic chemical called mercaptan into gas line and monitored vulture activity to check for leaks, according to All About Birds, a feature of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. While soaring, turkey vultures are using their incredible sense of smell to sniff out any potential dead food. “Eagles are powerful fliers with steady beating wings. They have broad, long wings, which when extended catch those thermal updrafts, which is why we see them migrating over mountain ranges,” he says. Look closely, and you can tell the difference between eagles and vultures from the way they fly, Wahrung says, perfectly suited to their nearly 6-foot wingspan. Black vultures live largely in the east and southeast U.S., also extending their range into Central and South America. Turkey vultures extend coast to coast, and breed as far north as Canada then migrate to South America. The ones you may see most often from your house or apartment window are either the black or turkey vultures, depending on where you live. A turkey vulture feeding on a road-killed raccoon. They’re nature’s cleaning crews, says Wahrung, the creatures willing to dig in and rid the ground of carcasses that can otherwise spread diseases, parasites and bacteria. has three species of vultures – black and turkey vultures and the California condor. They’re often considered raptors, but scientists believe they may well be more closely related to storks than carnivorous fliers. The taxonomic identification of vultures in North and South America can be a little confusing. © Tanya Stafford/TNC Photo Contest 2021 Nature’s Cleaning Crew “While vultures might not look pretty to some people, they certainly help make our habitats much healthier.” Two turkey vultures in a typical pose. They are scavengers and are consuming carrion, which if not picked up by others will rot and decompose and transmit possible bacteria and disease to other animals and humans,” Wehrung says. “Vultures are incredibly beneficial to have around. While the job of a vulture may not be the most glamorous – most humans can’t imagine sticking our bald heads inside a dead or rotting carcass – their role in our ecosystems could not be more critical. Many people view vultures as repulsive at best and bad omens at worst. But I’m not the only one that can’t help thinking vultures are some harbinger of death, says Alex Wehrung, an educator and spokesperson for the Wildlife Center of Virginia. I felt guilty for that unnerving feeling that circling vultures brought to my stomach. They often leapfrog their residential counterparts in warmer stretches of the U.S., leaving the best sanitizing duties to the locals as they ride thermal waves to warmer places. Vultures soar and circle even when they’re migrating. and one of only seven in the western hemisphere – making their way from breeding grounds near the Canadian border to their wintering area as far south as Central or South America. What I noticed were turkey vultures – one of three vulture species in the U.S. ![]() There was likely no hidden carcass.Īnd if something was dead, little is better for natural cleanup than a swirling kettle of vultures. But I couldn’t help that gut feeling: What died, or what is going to die, making them circle like that? They rarely landed, at least not that I could see. In the sky, circling above big cottonwood trees and barely moving their wings, were dozens and dozens of vultures. A few years ago, I moved to the center of a mid-sized western town and started spending more time than I should staring out the window.
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