The Turkey Vultures have been reappearing in numbers this week over my house and woods and landing in the pines on Asbury Rd just east of the cemetery (corner of Triphammer and Asbury) and occasionally in the neighbors’ large pines next to our sunroom.
We have had resident pair or two all winter. Monday, there were 6 birds. Tues there were 14. Wed there were 25-30 (couldn’t count as they were boiling around). I had a good look at the half-white winged (left wing) individual for the first time since last year. I thought I saw a spot of white on its breast or belly and at first thought it was carrying something white. Haven’t seen it yet again to resolve what I was seeing. It may have just been tipped at a weird angle at first glance, so I was seeing the wing tip. Tue I saw 2 cavorting in a raven-like way: very close coordinated flying with sharp turns, almost wing tips touching. Never noticed TUVU doing this before so very intriguing. Not sure if that is a courting pair or a rivalry show-off pair. I really like watching these guys; they clearly are having a ball flying in harsh windy conditions like yesterday’s. They do some crazy Ivan stunts like fly really low and really fast down the creek bed through the trees or really low over my house and adjacent trees, then shoot up in the air. Some were being pushed sideways by the wind, but always under control (fortunately, to date, none have smashed into my sunroom windows like the passerines). I think of them as the skateboarders of the bird world: taking nutty chances to show off and just have fun. They all look pretty healthy too: clean bright plumage and bright red face skin on the whole; only one missing primary on one bird of the many observed. I wonder if the ‘hard’ winter led to more food sources: i have certainly noticed decaying flesh smell on several recent walks at home and SSW (and checked my boots to be sure it wasn’t me). Probably critters being exposed as the snow melts. My dog has turned up several Red Fox caches under the snow. A few days ago, I found a beef leg bone piece (about 5 inches long, 4 in diameter) that we had given the dog, then disposed of in the compost heap when she was done getting all the marrow out. The bone was stashed up in the crotch of a small branch, 6’ off the ground on a large horizontally growing box elder that I pass under when we do our walk. It stayed there a couple days and is back on the ground again now (not directly under where it would have fallen). Raccoon? Opossum (we had one pass through the yard in the last few days)? Fox (they can climb trees and this would be an esp. easy place for a fox to get to)? Raptor (we have a resident Cooper’s Hawk but that seems like a silly thing for it to fool with)? Corvid? There was no meat or marrow on this bone, so I can’t imagine what critter thought it was worth the effort to cache. I think it must be too heavy and unwieldy for either squirrel species in the neighborhood. ______________________ Chris Pelkie Research Analyst Bioacoustics Research Program Cornell Lab of Ornithology 159 Sapsucker Woods Road Ithaca, NY 14850 -- Cayugabirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/cayugabirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/Cayugabirds 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/CAYU.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
