This seemed like a bad omen

[tlarson58]

I was driving through a rural area in NW Colorado and saw a bunch of turkey vultures roosting on fence posts. One on every post for a half mile (like the first picture). Kinda spooky.

A bit further a huge group of them were hanging by the side of the road. Another driver pulled over and we shared a wtf? look.

Turns out that it's no biggie. From Wikipedia (if it's on the net it has to be true): The turkey vulture is gregarious and roosts in large community groups, breaking away to forage independently during the day. Several hundred vultures may roost communally in groups, which sometimes even include black vultures. It roosts often on dead, leafless trees as well as low-density conifers, and will also roost on man-made structures such as water or microwave towers.

First two pics are from google, the last three are from my crummy phone camera. There had to be over a hundred. I tried moving in for a closer pic but they flew off. I thought better of doing it a second time but thought that it was a potential "hold my beer" moment.

From the net...

Today...

[LancerTheGreat]

Those would actually make some decent flavor pics for inside of or on the back of album, maybe even a good album cover lol.

Damn if I was at my desktop I'd do a silly mockup because I thought of a name

The turkey vultures, or T.V. Dinner.

[toomanycats]

[Partscaster]

The vultures are collectively saying to us, "Looking Good!"

[UrenragK]

Cool pics!

I had an encounter with one of the UK's reintroduced raptors a couple of weeks ago:


Target acquired


Top side pass

Wonderful to see Red Kites doing well

[mickey]

Rich, I can't see your pics!?!

[UrenragK]

Well that's annoying

Can you click on the broken link at all?

http://trackassault.com/images/kite1.jpeg
http://trackassault.com/images/kite2.jpeg

[mickey]

Well that's annoying

Can you click on the broken link at all?

http://trackassault.com/images/kite1.jpeg
http://trackassault.com/images/kite2.jpeg

I click on the link & they show up no problemo!

They are http NOT https, could that be the problem?

[UrenragK]

Shouldn't be, but possibly. I'm hosting the images myself, and for what I use my server for, I'm not going into getting certificates

[tlarson58]

T.V. Dinner.

Awesome.

[tlarson58]

turkey.jpeg

This is kind of personal, but I'd like to share it because it's awesome.

One of the guys I work one-on-one with has Down Syndrome and occasionally opines that fall in between an eagle and an alpha wolf on the leadership ladder. That's pretty exclusive company, boys.

This is the birthday post he put on my facebook page a couple of weeks ago.

Tell me that I don't have the best job in the world.

[tlarson58]

I had an encounter with one of the UK's reintroduced raptors a couple of weeks ago:

Wonderful to see Red Kites doing well

Beautiful.

[mickey]

Some buzzards do love to gather together to roost! Sometimes in largish numbers.
Back "in the good old days" before fiber optics, cell phones & such not.
AT&T's nationwide long distance network worked by microwave radio.
In all, they had something over 12,000 microwave sites similar to the one in this picture:

You may find it difficult to believe that each of those "horn of plenty" antennas at the top of the tower
were slightly larger than your typical UPS step van! Typically, those towers averaged 150-250 feet high.
Because of this they were an attractive places for buzzards to roost. Depending on the location we would
get several hundred buzzards per night. I guess they were attractive to the buzzards because a bunch of them
could roost atop each antenna. Plus the height gave them a good starting point to get flying in the morning.
Not to mention those towers were normally located on the highest ground in their area.

The problem was the amount of poop the buzzards create! It could build up on the face of the antennas to the point
it would degrade our signals, thus the sound quality you got on the long distance network.
I was always glad it wasn't my job to climb up a (150-250 foot tall tower) to clean the buzzard crap off the antennas!

[PoodlesAgain]

Here we have ospreys typically nesting on old telephone poles, but also on the historical Marconi–RCA Wireless Receiving Station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marconi%E ... ng_Station main pylon, right by the roadside.

Finicky things these ospreys: conservation folks install nesting platforms on two out of three are ignored,

Squirrels have been known to favor radar dishes for storage, in one case, I think, it caused some puzzlement from techs until the acorn stash was discovered!

[mickey]

Here we have ospreys typically nesting on old telephone poles, but also on the historical Marconi–RCA Wireless Receiving Station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marconi%E ... ng_Station main pylon, right by the roadside.

Finicky things these ospreys: conservation folks install nesting platforms on two out of three are ignored,

Squirrels have been known to favor radar dishes for storage, in one case, I think, it caused some puzzlement from techs until the acorn stash was discovered!

You say squirrel, I say Woody Woodpecker!

[solteroblues]

I grew up in the country and I have always seen vultures flying around or whatever, but never more than 2-3 at a time. I'm still out in the boon docks, but it's all subdivisions springing up everywhere now, if there's a bare spot of land, someone is going to build a house on it now. Seems like within just the last 3-4 years, I've been seeing the much larger groups of 20-30 for whatever reason. I don't know if it's because there's such a larger number of road kill deer/other animals now than there used to be due to less hunting or simply the houses are pushing them together more.

[solteroblues]

Well that's annoying

Can you click on the broken link at all?

http://trackassault.com/images/kite1.jpeg
http://trackassault.com/images/kite2.jpeg

what kind of camera did you use for these? They look beautiful!

[Mossman]

Well that's annoying

Can you click on the broken link at all?

http://trackassault.com/images/kite1.jpeg
http://trackassault.com/images/kite2.jpeg

Those are awesome pics!

[Mossman]

I lived out in the desert in the Vermilion Cliffs area of northern Arizona for about a year and a half, and we had a lot of California Condors out there. The Perigrine Fund (the group responsible for getting the California Condor off the endangered list) had a field house near where I lived. I was friends with most of the biologists, and hung out there often. Occasionally, they'd take me out in the field with them to observe the birds. They roosted communally too... All over the cliff face and the top of the cliffs. I don't remember what the count was, but there were a lot of them! They're enormous birds (8-10 ft wingspan), and I didn't envy those guys/girls at all when they had to capture one to be chelated (treated for lead poisoning from eating carcasses left behind by irresponsible hunters). Condors tend to lose their lunch when they're frightened. Imaging being puked on by a huge carrion eater as you're struggling to get it down off the cliffs for medical treatment! Or when they had to take their turn "up top" and sit in a metal box at a roost site for three days with blazing desert heat in the summer, and freezing cold in the winter. Regardless of the temperature, it was a rough gig. You couldn't leave the box if there were birds around, and you had to stay absolutely quiet, and just observe and take notes. I had a lot of respect for their dedication to what most people would regard a hideous, disgusting bird. It was a TOUGH job and they didn't get paid much. There were a couple of them who took the gig just so they could put it on their resume, but most of them really cared about the birds.

[UrenragK]

what kind of camera did you use for these? They look beautiful!

Thanks!

I use a Nikon D500 DSLR, with a Nikon 500mm F5.6 lens

[UrenragK]

Those are awesome pics!

Thank you!

Wildlife photography is my place I go to get away from life's stress