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came with our ancestors to the New World. In the British Isles the word refers to a hawk, a buteo much like our Red-shouldered or Red-tailed Hawk.
Vultures present a paradox. My admiration for them in the air is boundless; the power of the graceful flight is astonishing. On the other hand, their looks and food preference are repugnant indeed. But we must be grateful. What a stinky, messy world it would be were vultures not constantly alert to the food potential of a decaying carcass of an animal, especially deer.
As the population of the White-tail Deer explodes in the Virginia Piedmont, so does the vulture population. With too many deer for the habitat to feed, they die from starvation. Disease spreads quickly among deer weakened by lack of food. Who hasn’t seen dead deer beside highways where they have been struck by cars? Overcrowding forces deer to wander onto roads in search of food. Dead deer provide food for vultures. Healthy, well-fed vultures produce more vultures.
There are two species of vultures: the Black Vulture has a wingspread of five feet and weighs up to six pounds. The Turkey Vulture weighs only about four and half pounds and has a wingspread of six feet. Both are big birds with featherless heads. The adult Turkey Vulture has a red featherless head; the Black Vulture’s bare head is black.
This feature is not too much of an aid in identificationNunless one is quite close. Who wants to get close enough to a vulture to see the color of its head? Besides, the immature Turkey Vulture has black skin on its head. It doesn’t take too much imaginative thinking to understand that a featherless head is an advan
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