To our readers: Due to medical reasons, Ken Cole Jr. is currently unable to pen his weekly column and has authorized the newspaper to reprint previously submitted columns. This column originally appeared in the June 8 edition of The Suburban News.
My son, Charles, brought me some pictures taken nearby of two turkey vultures he had seen resting in the top of a dead tree. His pictures have made me watch closer the sky above because I should see them soaring from one updraft to another with their wings in a V-formation.
Other birds of prey soar as they search for food so you have to observe carefully to know which you looking at. Vultures are mostly black with a wingspread to six feet with a bald red head, which hardly shows when they are flying.
The turkey vulture, or turkey buzzard as some call it, has a weak head and bill, and, as a result, its food is mostly carrion. Having excellent eyesight, it can detect a possible meal from great height. Like its relative the condor, it has no feather on its head making it easier to feast on the interior of a dead carcass.
It’s not particular where it nests, so nests have been found in hollowed logs, decayed stumps, and just on the ground among brush or rocks. The female lays one to three eggs two to two-and-a-half-inches in size and white with chocolate markings. Incubation requires about a month.
When the young are born, they are covered with white down. It is believed their life span is up to 118 years.
If cornered or wounded, they eject their smelly stomach contents at their enemy most effectively. Sometimes when they have eaten a lot and they are startled, they have to eject some of their just-eaten meal in order to takeoff.
They are highly valuable to help keep carrion from road kills from building up.
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