Greensboro Birds

While we’re busy correcting things, let’s talk about this recent news story from New Jersey. State police identified the bird that crashed into a minivan on Route 80 near Parsippany as a turkey vulture. Silly troopers. Smartypants birders like us know this is clearly a wild turkey (probably a hen), not a turkey vulture. The Star-Ledger perpetuates this vulture fallacy by not doing any basic fact-checking, which is understandable since there are exactly four people still working in print journalism. NBC New York has a clearer photo of what are obviously turkey feathers. For the record, turkey vultures are totally black with bright red heads (black vultures have black heads).

Coincidentally, Josh and I nearly hit a wild turkey while driving on a twisty mountain road between Boone and Bristol last weekend. Crazy Tom jumped right in front of the Kia, freaked out, then miraculously flew 20 feet into the air to land in a tree overhanging the road. Seeing this, I’m glad we dodged it or we definitely would’ve missed the Bristol race, which would have been the real tragedy.