Saturday, September 19, 2009
Vulture Sighting,
On a recent morning I heard a ruckus outside. Sammie was in defense mode.
hackles were up as she was at the property line, I didn't see any stray dogs or such, and when I followed what she was looking at I saw this:
a bird with wings spread out sitting on the poles in the neighbors property, Sammie was barking at the bird. At first I thought it was the hawk that sometimes shows up in the neighborhood, but this bird didn't look quite as big. So I thought it might be a raven, but Sammie's and Leydi's behavior was not the same as when a raven hangs out too close. Sammie was really upset about this bird.
So I went back to the house to get my binoculars to figure out what kind of a bird we are dealing with here. It was a vulture. In all the years I have been here in Southern Nevada, I have never seen a vulture, I had people nearby one time mention vultures in their yard and I thought they meant the ravens. But this was clearly a vulture, no feathers on the head, bright red head and a huge beak.
Vulture sitting with wings spread. Sammie barking at it. I would have never noticed this if it hadn't been for my alert dogs, they just don't miss anything.
The vulture.
the vulture surveying the area, if this had been a hawk, I wouldn't have left to go to work without leaving a dog or two in the chicken yard, since it is still too hot outside during the day for the dogs, I wouldn't have been able to go to work until a hawk had moved on. Vultures to my knowledge will not kill a chicken, but instead look for something that is already dead. We have had a lot of coyote activities lately in the area, so my guess is that a coyote left some smelly leftovers in the vicinity and the vulture was going to clean up. I haven't seen it since then, it's been a few days since this happened.
On a recent morning I heard a ruckus outside. Sammie was in defense mode.
hackles were up as she was at the property line, I didn't see any stray dogs or such, and when I followed what she was looking at I saw this:
a bird with wings spread out sitting on the poles in the neighbors property, Sammie was barking at the bird. At first I thought it was the hawk that sometimes shows up in the neighborhood, but this bird didn't look quite as big. So I thought it might be a raven, but Sammie's and Leydi's behavior was not the same as when a raven hangs out too close. Sammie was really upset about this bird.
So I went back to the house to get my binoculars to figure out what kind of a bird we are dealing with here. It was a vulture. In all the years I have been here in Southern Nevada, I have never seen a vulture, I had people nearby one time mention vultures in their yard and I thought they meant the ravens. But this was clearly a vulture, no feathers on the head, bright red head and a huge beak.
Vulture sitting with wings spread. Sammie barking at it. I would have never noticed this if it hadn't been for my alert dogs, they just don't miss anything.
The vulture.
the vulture surveying the area, if this had been a hawk, I wouldn't have left to go to work without leaving a dog or two in the chicken yard, since it is still too hot outside during the day for the dogs, I wouldn't have been able to go to work until a hawk had moved on. Vultures to my knowledge will not kill a chicken, but instead look for something that is already dead. We have had a lot of coyote activities lately in the area, so my guess is that a coyote left some smelly leftovers in the vicinity and the vulture was going to clean up. I haven't seen it since then, it's been a few days since this happened.// posted by ZaltanaAnatolians @ 5:33 PM 
