More Wildlife Rumbles: Turkey Vs. Turkey Vulture-Which Will Win?

I don't much like the kind of nature writing that starts out, "Turkey vultures are the Rodney Dangerfields of birds. They get no respect." I mean, I would never write a sentence like that.  To me, it smacks of pandering. It's a too-obvious ploy to ingratiate yourself with the reader. Bleh.

It might not be immediately obvious, but this immature red-shouldered hawk is dissing this vulture by swooping in and perching right next to it. You can't see the vulture's head because it's hanging down in shame.

Turkey vultures are the Rodney Dangerfields of birds.

They get no respect. 

 I do hate that kind of nature writing, but...oops, I just did it. 

Even a wimpy immature red-shouldered hawk thinks he can take a shot at a turkey vulture. Because he can. He's gonna get away with it. What's the vulture going to do? Vomit on him?

 And the big clumsy old vulture just ducks and takes it. I don't get it. I respect turkey vultures.
 I love  turkey vultures.  We need turkey vultures! So much so that every once in awhile when a white-tailed deer walks out in the middle of our meadow and drops dead, I just leave it there for them. And hunker down in the living room with my camera for the next day and a half, which is exactly how long it took seven turkey vultures to clean it up. The poor foxes and coyotes never got a bite!

 So I'm watching these vultures peacefully feeding on October 8, 2014, and I see three wild turkey gobblers (as distinct from turkey vultures) walk up on them from the far reaches of the meadow.  And my first thought is, "Well, this is going to be interesting."

I've never seen an interaction between the two species, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to see one now. I wait it out.

The gobblers just stroll along, doing this cool thing with the little bluestem grass where they fling their naked heads out to the side, grip about halfway up the stem of the grass, then run the stem quickly through their bills and strip the seeds off it all the way to the end.

La la la la la. We're eating grass seeds. Nothing to look at here. Vegetarians, we are.

Vegetarians with an attitude. Militant vegetarians.

But they nonchalantly draw closer and closer to the vultures, who had been happily stuffing themselves with deer liver. And as the turkeys moseyed closer and closer the vultures got their panties in a bunch and retreated to a handy snag (which we put there for them to perch on in the event a deer should drop dead under it).

Suwwounded!!

One vulture flies off, and the other flaps over to a fencepost near our bluebird box. 

Those meddlesome turkeys follow it.

By now it's perfectly clear what's going on. It's another rumble. A wildlife rumble.

When you're a Jet, you're a Jet all the way...

I absolutely love the aggressive poses of the turkeys. We so bad! 

I don't know why the turkeys would do this. It's not as if they want to eat deer liver.  It seems to me they're intimidating the vultures just because they can. Because it's fun. 

Because they're manturkeys and they need to dump a little testosterone, and the HogWild Gobbler Mud Run isn't until next Saturday. 

Something.

I mean, look at this! They're embiggening themselves, standing sideways. The poor vulture feels invaded.

I swear I heard him say Booga Booga as he flapped his wings! It was definitely not Gobble Gobble.

Vulture does a perfect Rodney Dangerfield take toward the camera.

Did I hear a NYAAAAHHHH!? Look at the tail spread, the open bill on that Musketeer!

 Vultures routed, the Meddlesome Turkeys go on their lazy, merry way. 

I flippin' love turkeys. Turkeys and turkey vultures both.

Here endeth the lesson.

Dead Deer, Live Deer, Vulture, 'Possum, Coy-wolf

In less than a week, the scavengers had reduced a deer carcass in our field to a torso and attached bones. They started at the haunch and kept going. A gray fox opened the haunch, eating most of one, and the vultures, who'd been waiting for an opening, gladly went ahead and finished the job.

Snow fell on the carcass, and this buck came by to investigate.

Everything in his mien said revulsion and apprehension--the pinned-back ears, the hunched back, the tentative steps. 

I figure he knew this young button buck.

He circled the carcass, kept coming back.

Finally he walked off, shaking his foot as if to rid himself of the feeling of coming upon one of his own, dead.

Others were much happier to discover the carcass.

I was elated to have a chance to finally get some decent vulture shots. I needed them for my new talk.

When the coy-wolves found the carcass, it went from food to bones overnight. 

At dawn, I found a fat opossum gnawing on it. And opossums being who they are, I was able to walk slowly out in the meadow, shooting as I approached. When he looked up at me I stopped, took a last photo, and walked back the way I came. He never left, just went back to his stanky breakfast.

What a gift this carcass was to so many animals. 

The next morning it was gone! But it wasn't hard to find...see the white dot in the woods border? And the trail of white belly hair leading all the way to it? Coy-wolves, dragging it into cover, not wanting to be spotted feeding. They're strong animals. I'm teaching myself not to call them coyotes any more. 

They're part eastern wolf. Just wrote an article for The Marietta Times called Coy-Wolves: Evolution in Action. 

This photo taken in our meadow a few winters back. Visually inseparable from an eastern (red) wolf. That's because he's got a big dose of those Canis rufus genes, from the interbreeding that went on between western coyotes and eastern wolves in northern Ontario. What we've got in the East is a genetically stable hybrid. Not a coy-dog. A coy-wolf. A new canid, longer of leg, bigger of foot, shorter and deeper of muzzle, smaller of ear and heavier of body and fur than the scrawny pale western coyote.

 And they live and feast and yammer and howl on our land every night. They den on the north-facing slope. So far, they have chosen not to kill Chet Baker, though I know they could in a heartbeat. And I'm grateful they have kept it to deer and rabbits, turkeys and woodchucks, voles and feral cats. I think about it every time I let him out to do his nightly business. And I think he does, too. He hurries back, flaps his ears, shivers. I spank him as he runs by, hug him, thankful each time that he comes back to crawl under the covers with me. Life in the country.

When I hear them howl I tuck what tail I have and run for the house!

The stash.

Every morning, a surprise. The turkey vulture's namesake, partying in the dawn light.

I'll miss my vultures. Must see if we can rustle up some more grub for them. 

You've heard the word catharsis. It refers to the relief, the cleansing collapse you feel after a big emotional event. 

Cathartes aura. The Golden Cleanser.