Birds and Birding's Guide to:

Watching THE FALCON-LIKE BIRDS

THE AMERICAN VULTURES (Suborder Catharta)

Vulture Carrion

There is a widespread popular belief that these birds, as well as the other members of the group, possess a wonderfully acute sense of smell which enables them to detect the presence of carrion at a great distance, and many are the tales that have been told and which in a measure seem to prove the truth of this supposed power; but, on the other hand, the opposing facts are so strong as to make it difficult to decide between them.

As might be expected from dissections of the olfactory organs as made by Owen and others, their sense of smell is probably more highly developed than in most birds, but it is doubtful if it is more acute than in most human beings. Numerous experiments have been tried, not only with this species but with other of the Vultures, of concealing carrion near where they were congregated, and in no case did they find it.

It would be interesting to give an account of many of these experiments, but we have only space for the following, taken from Barrows: “The rough painting of a sheep, skinned and cut open, soon brought Vultures to examine and tug at it, and although the experiment was repeated scores of times it never failed, on each fresh exposure, to attract the hungry birds.

A wheelbarrow load of tempting carrion was next covered by a single sheet of thin canvas, above which bits of fresh meat were strewn. The fresh meat was soon eaten, but although the Vultures must frequently have had their bills within an eighth of an inch of the carrion beneath, they did not discover it.”On the other hand, Mr. Ridgway is strongly of the opinion that they can and do detect the presence of carrion by the sense of smell. He says,”I have repeatedly seen them attracted to a dead animal so thoroughly concealed from view that they could not possibly see it even from immediately overhead, much less from a distance.”

He also relates an instance where he observed dozens of Turkey Buzzards coming”up the wind”to a field which had been newly fertilized with fish guano, undoubtedly attracted only by the odor. Their acuteness of vision is, however, beyond question, and it is upon this that they undoubtedly largely depend in securing their food. They have been known to descend from a height at which they were almost invisible to human sight to feed upon a dead snake a few inches long that must have been discovered from this lofty position. -

The Turkey Vulture deposits its eggs, usually two in number, in a hollow log or tree, among rocks or frequently on the ground. The eggs are thought by many to be the handsomest of those of any of the raptorial birds.

Their ground color is generally a light creamy tint, occasionally a dull white, and they are blotched, smeared, and spotted with various shades of reddish brown, chocolate, and lavender, these markings usually predominating over the larger end.

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