Saturday, December 18, 2021

Vultures Of Fort Worth, Texas

This is quite a coincidence.  I took this picture right outside our home in Fort Worth, Texas, on this day in 2017:


It's a gruesome shot to be sure, but it wasn't an uncommon one - carrion birds were always at the ready when there was roadkill.  Fort Worth to the west was increasingly rural, & doubtless those birds lived in the more unpopulated areas.

A year later, on this day in 2018, I took this picture:


It's another vulture, or perhaps the same one from the year before, it has been sitting on the pole looking for (or rather smelling for, as they hunt by scent) newly killed urban wildlife.  I happened to take the picture as it was leaving.

You don't see many of these sorts of carrion birds around Portland, although perhaps it's because the ubiquitous crows double as carrion birds hereabouts.

Lest you think I'm a bit morbid, thinking about vultures, let me point you to this site here. It tells me these are turkey vultures, it's how I knew about their scent hunting, & it's got more gruesome pictures than I took.

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