Hi, I am called A Turkey Vulture. When you see me you think I have the head of a Turkey. You will find me soaring in the sky always looking for food such as the dead and rotting body of an animal which is called the Carrion. Many will see my red head and white bill, along with my cute yellow feet, and brown black body. Sometimes if you see me flying you may see my wings slightly forming the V shape which are about 60 to 70 inches long. I live in Canada, throughout the good old USA, South America and the Caribbean. We love to live in the lower forest zones, and the western steppe zones near the Cascades. We nest high on the cliffs in these regions in small caves and ledges.
We eat all kinds of Carrion, from small animals to large animals. For snacks we love to eat insects, some fruit and invertebrate creatures. When we are nesting we have no nesting structure, our females will lay 1 to 3 eggs on the ground, in burrows, hollow logs, fallen trees, abandoned buildings, caves and crevices. We are nothing more but scavengers, so you will never see us kill an animal.
Something strange we do in hot weather, is we will defecate on our feet to cool them off. Our digestive juices are very good because they somehow kill any bacteria, and that’s why we do not get sick from eating rotten, dead food. Defecating on our legs and feet work as an antiseptic wash. Another thing you may not like is that when we need to defend ourselves we will vomit our food which we can send sailing 10 feet hitting any thing that is bothering us. Vomit of ours is such an effective predator repellent. Cool, UH?
Maybe one day you will see a bird flying low to the ground picking up a scent of a yummy dead animal for dinner. It will be one of us!
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