Hi All,
I'm the wildlife biologist for the Yurok Tribe in Klamath, CA. Wanted to get some help from all you vulture enthusiasts out there. We are running a CA condor reintroduction feasibility study and are tagging turkey vultures as part of our project. Please report yellow wingtags with black numbers to cwest@yuroktribe.nsn.us. We need to know when and where you saw the bird and the number on the tag. Pictures are great too. Check out our project at www.yuroktribe.org/government/selfgovern/condorprogram.htm.
Thanks for the great blog Ali!
Chris West
(posted by the moderator for this great project)
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
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3 comments:
I live in the Okanagan, Canada and today September 19 2010 at approximately 5:00 pm. A turkey vulture flew high up a pine tree which was a skeleton of a tree because of the pine beetle. It perched on a very thin branch at the very top for about 10 minutes with its wings fully extended as if balancing on this branch. The weather at the time was stormy and I was thinking it might have lost its way because of the weather. It then flew off very slowly and we watched it land on another tree. It did not appear to be hurt in any way. Was this an unusual thing to see.?
lesleyvprice@hotmail.com
Lesley,
No this behavior is common at night. Vultures do not normally fly at night, they soar on thermals created by the sun heating the ground.
At 5 pm. the vulture would be settling down for the night and depending on weather would arise at around 9 am to continue its southbound migration. If the weather was too rainy, then the bird might hang around for a day or two before attempting to continue its journey.
i live in a rural area east of red bluff,ca where a group of vultures lives in the cottonwood trees along a creek. i was lucky to experience the migration kettles this year which included at least a couple of thousand birds. an awesome sight indeed. i shot a video and posted it on youtube...not the best quality, but i was able to capture some of the flurry
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yC0_Vys4XOU
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