Greensboro Birds

People tend to ignore the random black or brown birds, dismissing them as nothing special. That’s understandable, given all the bright cardinals and bluebirds around here, but those folks would have missed the spectacular display a pair of Turkey Vultures put on over Lincoln Green the other day. They were gracefully soaring low overhead, just missing collisions as they swerved past each other. Some kind of Turkey Vulture courtship, I assume. Pleasant to watch, in any event.

Greensboro is home to both Turkey and Black vultures. The turkey variety has a bald red head (gray when young) and longer tail feathers. The trailing half of their wings is silver, as you can clearly see here. They also rock side to side when soaring, and rarely flap their wings. The vultures I was watching soared until they ran out of thermals and updrafts, at which point they perched briefly on the national park’s barn.

Vultures are carrion eaters with a tremendous sense of smell. So tremendous, in fact, that the bird smells its way to the next meal. I’m not usually averse to including gross info about birds, but there is one fact about Turkey Vultures that is so gross that you’ll have to check out the Cornell page on Turkey Vultures to read about it. See if you can figure out which gross fact I’m alluding to.

UPDATE: Okay, what’s so gross? Black Vultures pee on their own legs in order to enjoy the cooling evaporation (they can’t sweat) and to kill the bacteria from their carrion meal. Meaning that peeing on itself is cleaner than just standing there. Also, Turkey Vultures will repel attackers by vomiting. The smell of their stomach contents is so vile that no predator can go through with the attack. Genius!