What’s that eating the roadkill? Buzzards, you say. Maybe, but they have several designations depending on their actions. Buzzards (defined as any of various hawks that are slow and heavy in flight) are actually two different new world vultures – the black vulture and the turkey vulture.
A group of vultures is called: a kettle in flight; a committee, venue or volt as they rest in trees; or a wake while feeding.
A quick glance identifies the black vulture by a black featherless head, while the turkey vulture sports a distinctive bald red head. They are both very clean birds which love taking baths in water puddles. Both vultures feed mostly on carrion, though the black vulture will also eat eggs or kill newborn animals. It finds food though sight.
The turkey vulture, a scavenger, is one of the few birds who forage for food by the sense of smell, along with keen eyesight. It feeds almost exclusively on carrion. By flying low to the ground, it picks up a gas smell emitted by decaying carcasses. The turkey vulture’s olfactory can guide him to carrion five miles away.
Both vultures share some interesting peculiarities:
They lack a syrinx, birds’ vocal organ, so their only sounds are hisses and grunts
They defecate on their own legs to clean their feet from rotting carrion, and help cool the blood vessels in their legs and feet
Their droppings can harm or kill trees and other plants
Vultures appear in Mayan hieroglyphics and Mayan codices associated with death or birds of prey
They have highly acidic stomachs, giving them a high immunity or resistance to anthrax, botulism, hog cholera and rabies.
Vultures - Polk County’s best road sanitation crew. Who knew?
