Turkey Vulture

About the Turkey Vulture

The Turkey Vulture is the dark, six-foot-winged silhouette rocking on the Texas thermals. Up close it is blackish-brown with a bare red head and a pale, hooked bill; in flight the two-toned underwing (dark front, silvery flight feathers) and teetering, dihedral glide identify it at any distance.

It is one of the very few birds with a keen sense of smell, able to locate carrion beneath a forest canopy from high in the air. Turkey Vultures rarely flap, riding rising air for hours, and gather at night in communal roosts in tall trees and on towers. On cool mornings they perch spread-winged, warming and drying in the sun.

They are year-round across Texas and near-ubiquitous - an unglamorous but essential cleanup crew, and a genuinely masterful flier.