CIRCLEVILLE – If you drive North Court Street in Circleville, or are in the downtown area where these guys seem to hang out you will see that these big birds are back and circling as usual
No matter where you live in Ohio you can find one of two known species of Vulture that live here, the Turkey Vulture, or the Black. In my experience, I’ve seen both in the Pickaway County area here’s how to tell the difference.
One of the big features to tell are the white wings on the Turkey Vulture and the black head on the Black Vulture.
Both birds do migrate in colder areas like Ohio, but in some Southern States, they never leave.
Vultures are not considered attractive or “pretty” to most people. Regardless, vultures are incredibly important to the environment because they eat dead animals that most other predators can’t stomach. Eliminating rotting meat helps stop the spread of tuberculosis, rabies, and more.
Vultures are perfectly adapted to a life of consuming carrion. For example, their featherless heads and necks help keep themselves clean as they insert themselves inside decaying meat. Also, vultures have powerful stomach acid that allows them to be exposed to nasty things without problems, such as rabies, Black Plague, botulism, distemper, and anthrax.
Another interesting feature of the bird is that they are monogamous for life and build nests in stumps, caves, thickets, and hollow trees they don’t make nests like other birds either. Family members stay together and create large communal roosts.
Most of the time you see Vultures in the sky because they spend a lot of time gliding around, in Spring you’ll find these big birds on top of homes or fields with their wings spread wide warming up and drying themselves out.
