Turkey Vulture

About the turkey vulture

The turkey vulture is the most widespread of the New World vultures, one of three species in the genus Cathartes within the family Cathartidae. It ranges from southern Canada to the southern tip of South America and inhabits a wide variety of open and semi-open landscapes, including subtropical forests, shrublands, pastures, and deserts. Although New World vultures like the turkey vulture strongly resemble the Old World vultures of Europe, Africa, and Asia, the two groups are not closely related — the similarity comes from convergent evolution rather than shared ancestry. Recent genetic studies place New World vultures as a sister group to the order Accipitriformes, which includes the osprey and secretarybird alongside hawks, eagles, and Old World vultures.

The bird takes its common name from the resemblance of its bald, red-skinned adult head and dark plumage to that of a male wild turkey; "vulture" comes from the Latin vulturus, or "tearer," describing its feeding habits. It was first formally described by Carl Linnaeus in 1758 as Vultur aura. In some parts of North America it is called a "buzzard" or "turkey buzzard," and in parts of the Caribbean it is known as the "John crow" or "carrion crow."

Adults have mostly brownish-black body feathers, with flight feathers that appear silvery-gray from beneath, contrasting against darker wing linings. The head is small relative to the body and largely bare, showing red skin, with a short, hooked, ivory-colored beak. Sexes look identical, showing minimal size or plumage difference. Birds toward the northern end of the range tend to run larger than those in the neotropics — 124 birds sampled in Florida averaged 2 kg (4.4 lb), while samples from Venezuela averaged 1.22 to 1.45 kg (2.7 to 3.2 lb). The nostrils are not divided by a septum, so light can be seen through the beak from the side. Leucistic turkey vultures, sometimes mistaken for albinos, are occasionally seen.

Behavior and diet

Turkey vultures are gregarious, roosting communally in groups that can number in the hundreds, sometimes alongside black vultures, before breaking away to forage independently by day. They favor dead, leafless trees and low-density conifers for roosting, and will also use man-made structures like water or microwave towers. The species holds a spread-winged, horaltic stance often seen after damp nights, likely to dry its wings, warm its body, and kill bacteria. It also practices urohidrosis — defecating on its own legs and using evaporation to cool its blood vessels, which streaks the legs white with uric acid.

In flight, the turkey vulture holds its wings in a shallow V-shape and tips from side to side, an example of static soaring that lets it flap infrequently and ride rising thermals instead. It has few natural predators; great horned owls, golden eagles, and bald eagles occasionally take fledglings or adults, while raccoons and opossums may prey on eggs and nestlings. Its primary defense is regurgitating semi-digested, foul-smelling meat at a threat, and it may also vomit directly at a predator's face.

Feeding is built around carrion, found using keen eyesight and, unusually for a bird, a strong sense of smell — the turkey vulture flies low to detect ethyl mercaptan, a gas released early in decomposition, which lets it locate carcasses hidden below the forest canopy. It prefers recently dead animals over carcasses that have reached putrefaction and rarely kills prey itself, though it will occasionally take weak or sick animals, eggs, or nestlings. It also feeds on fish, tadpoles, or insects stranded in shallow water, and will visit rubbish dumps. Breeding season timing shifts with latitude, starting in March in the southern United States and later further north. Courtship involves several birds gathering in a circle, hopping around its perimeter with wings partly spread. Eggs, typically two per clutch, are laid on a bare surface in a cave, cliff, hollow tree, or thicket, with little or no nest construction; both parents incubate for 30 to 40 days, and helpless hatchlings are fed by regurgitation and cared for 10 to 11 weeks before fledging at nine to ten weeks.

Range and habitat

The turkey vulture has an estimated global range of 28,000,000 km2 (11,000,000 sq mi), making it the most widely distributed vulture in the Americas, found from southern Canada to Cape Horn. It is a permanent resident in the southern United States, while northern populations migrate as far south as South America. Within this huge range it shows clear habitat preferences: open areas bordering woodland, which supply both nesting sites and roosts, are especially important, and the species tends to avoid enclosed forest and completely treeless plains alike. It also uses tropical and subtropical forests, shrublands, deserts, semi-desert, wetlands, and foothills, and agricultural land — particularly pastureland and other low-input farmland — is a key habitat for foraging and roosting. It appears over urban areas too, though less routinely than the black vulture does in the tropics and subtropics.

Conservation status

The turkey vulture is classified as Least Concern (LC). The text describes a large and stable-sounding population, estimated at 18,000,000 individuals globally, and notes that in the United States it receives legal protection under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918. No major threats to the species are described here.