Imagine what life would be like if nature didn’t provide us with its own garbagemen.
Turkey vultures are also known as buzzards or turkey buzzards. Those aren’t very imaginative names. I think that nature’s garbagemen is a much more fitting and descriptive name. What do they do? They eat dead animals, any dead animal. Sometimes these dead animals are a breeding ground for disease such as rabies, botulism, anthrax, cholera, and more; sometimes they died perfectly healthy. They prefer animals that are freshly dead as opposed to ones that have been dead for weeks, but they can consume meat so rotten that it would make other animals sick. They are blessed with such strong stomach acids that any bacteria present in what they consume has no effect on them.
They will gladly clean up any dogs, cats, deer, or other animals that have been hit by cars, killed, and are lying on the edge of the road, but turkey vultures don’t actually care where the dead animal is. With their exceptional sense of smell, they are searching for a certain odor: ethyl mercaptan. This is a gas produced early in the stages of decay. They are able to detect this scent up to a mile away. When they are unable to locate anything dead to eat (even humans), they will feed on vegetation, coconut, pumpkin, insects, and fruits.
Fun Facts
Turkey vultures do not build nests. So where do they lay their eggs? Do they steal the nests of other birds? No, they lay them in any handy space they can find such as hollow logs, crevices, abandoned buildings, caves, etc. They just make sure wherever they choose to lay their eggs isn’t easy for predators to get to.
Turkey vultures don’t have any vocal organs, so you won’t hear them singing or calling to each other. However, they are liable to make low guttural hisses when they are annoyed or vying for a better spot on the carcass. When in flight, they are liable to make a nasally whine.
Turkey vultures vomit as a means of self-defense. They are able to project their vomit as far away as ten feet! Just imagine the horror of being hit with a stream of turkey vulture vomit! The stench would be horrendous.
They poop on their legs and feet to cool off in hot weather. So how does that work? The liquid poop evaporates as it dries and reduces the body temperature of the vulture.
Turkey vultures have bald heads. That way, they are able to stick their head inside dead animals without having anything stick in their feathers.
A group of turkey vultures is called a venue, but a group of them circling in the air is called a kettle.
Why, you might ask yourself, did I have a desire to write about turkey vultures? These scavenger birds aren’t particularly attractive, and their job in nature is sort of gross.
My Experience with Turkey Vultures
Where I live, it’s not uncommon for people to kill a cow and cut it into quarters to take to the butcher. And that is what we did one day this past August. My husband had to immediately leave for work after he took the cow to the butcher, and it would be several days before he returned home, so he didn’t have time to get lime and spread it over the remains. If you’ve ever smelled rotting remains and blood, you know that it smells like death, the only word that can adequately describe that sickly-sweet smell. So the remains were enclosed in a tightly tied plastic garbage bag to be taken care of when he returned home; that is an important part of what happened. But nature took care of the remains for us.
The next morning was foggy, but there was nothing unusual about that. I walked my dogs right past the area where the bag holding the cow remnants was, but it was hidden from our view. The air smelled fresh with no scent of death, at least not enough to be detected by us. On our second lap as we approached the top of the hill near the remains, I heard something ripping at the plastic bag. That sound broke the quiet stillness of the early morning. My first thought was other dogs, but neither of my dogs had started barking, growling, or trying to persuade me to move faster. Not sure what was back there making that noise, I stopped.
The next moment, it was like I had stepped through a time warp that had taken me back to the prehistoric time of dinosaurs. The fog only enhanced the effect. These huge birds took off from the ground. Their wings were so large they beat on the limbs of the trees surrounding them. My mouth dropped open, and I was disappointed that I didn’t have my phone with me to get pictures of them. But by the time I thought of that, it was too late anyway; they had settled back down to feast. Our local turkey vultures had already found their next meal, and I hadn’t even realized they were there. They were intent on cleaning up what we hadn’t been able to dispose of yet. The garbage bag was of no concern to them; my guess is that the plastic was no match for their powerful stomach acids.
Writing Prompts:
What if I had really walked through a time warp and went back to the days when dinosaurs were king. Would the turkey vultures have looked or acted any differently? Would they have been interested in me and my dogs even though we obviously weren’t dead?
Were Velociraptors hiding amongst the trees to jump out and attack us for their mext meal?
How would one survive if this happened? I guess a lot would depend on what type of weapons you too with you, but most of us don’t walk around with guns, knives, etc. on us. Would the knowledge that you took back with from the modern day help you any?
What animals would you have to learn how to evade? Would there be any animals or people there that would help you? Maybe you would run into others who had walked through that same time warp.
