Understanding and Appreciating Wildlife: Turkey Vulture

Named for the adult’s featherless red heads that resemble the heads of wild turkeys, turkey vultures have come back to farm country for an encore. Of course, most of us older rural folks call them turkey buzzards. A migrant in much of the state, they are found year-round only in far southern Illinois.

During the first half of the twentieth century, turkey vultures circling, soaring, and gliding high over the back 40 were almost a weekly occurrence. These masters of sanitation cleaned up the carrion from dead livestock dragged and hauled to the back corner of the farm before rendering trucks made their rounds, picking up carcasses at farmsteads. (See the sidebar, “A Vulture’s Haven, Where Back-40s Met.)”
Vultures rely on both sight and a keen sense of smell to locate carrion. However, this heightened ability to smell is not selective because road-killed skunks are sometimes on their menu.

Be warned about the personal defenses of vultures, especially close to their nests or under roosts. Their regurgitated, partially digested carrion is not pleasant if you are targeted. Remember, they feast on dead skunks. Such foul, putrid material makes no matter to them.

Now, with recent increases in white-tailed deer populations during these last decades, turkey vultures are back in numbers. Road-killed deer and wounded deer being lost by hunters are a significant reason for the comeback. Other factors are also involved.

Historically, vultures nested and sometimes roosted in dilapidated cribs and barns on abandoned farmsteads. Missing windows and open haymow doors allowed easy access to the second stories of farm buildings. Here, usually two eggs were laid in what can hardly be called a nest made of scattered boards and other haphazard disarrays of debris. They also nest in natural cavities and crevices and in large hollow trees such as sycamores.

In addition to abandoned farm buildings, turkey vultures have usually roosted in out-of-the-way places far from humans. But that is changing. Roosting now occurs closer to humans. Several years ago, two dozen attempted to spend the nights in our white pine windbreak not more than 120 feet from our rural home which is near the edge of a timber.

Vultures had been circling above our acreage for several evenings, not anything out of the ordinary nor something to raise suspicions. Then, one evening at dusk, we heard an unexpected commotion in the windbreak pines. Their intentions were exposed. We watched the following evening. Across the open field, they flew in low to the far row of pines to their hoped for roost, almost undetected from our house.

But, it turns out that other turkey vulture habits are changing, too. During the last decade or so, they are increasingly frequenting the fringes of urban areas and even active farmsteads. Urban people are reporting more sightings, especially in spring. Several factors may be involved, including the pulse in numbers arriving or passing through during spring migration. Another factor: Increased animal activities of breeding and raising young during late winter and spring results in more animals on the landscape, and perhaps roadkills that attract vultures. How many times have you seen an adult raccoon and one or more young killed together on the roadway?

Year round, with more animals crossing roads in urban fringe settings, and increased and faster traffic, more roadkills result that attract more vultures.

A change in farmer behavior may explain in part the increased vulture activity around farmsteads. Years ago on farms, vultures were shot because they were falsely believed to be poultry-snatching raptors. These false fears were founded by free-ranging barnyard chickens being thrown into a panic by seeing vultures flying overhead or possibly their shadows as they flew over, thinking they were hawks. As the truth became known, vultures were no longer shot. As a result, vultures may be losing their fear of humans.

But now, back to our pines and the would-be roosting vultures. Somewhat surprisingly, several vultures roosting on the same pine branch were often breaking the top branches. What should be done? There comes a time when many of us who love things natural, wild, and free have to make hard choices—what is normally well enough, cannot be left alone. With much encouragement, the vultures relocated and roosted on the timber edge across the field.

However, if you long for the odor of the leavings of vultures—the putrid stench of digested carrion that overpowers the pleasant aroma under the pines—leave well enough alone and let them be!

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Robert J. Reber is an emeritus faculty member in the Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He has been a lifelong student of many aspects of the Natural World, including archaeology. Reber has served as a managing editor and author for publications such as The Illinois Steward and the Illinois Master Naturalist Curriculum Guide.