Heroes that are Too Cool for Capes!
Photo by Becky Wylie, Field notes by Jeff Cantrell
My stint at the zoo permitted me to work with many different birds on my gloved hand in past years. The bald eagle made my shoulder hurt and the red-tailed hawks often wanted to drop off. The great horned owls had a comforting grip like a blood pressure monitor that simply felt good. However, the big birds with personality honor went to the parrots, the macaws, and the adored turkey vultures. Handling turkey vultures (T.V.) was a challenge, they are so inquisitive, and they always wanted to investigate the glare of my glasses. The T.V.s are certainly fun for a conservation educator and a wonderful focal point for elementary students or a junior high science club.
The OZARKS region is seeing a seasonal return of vultures this March. The big birds have mostly been absent these past few months. They migrate as far as South America, although some take winter refuge closer in our southern states and Central America. During the winter, here in the Ozarks the bald eagle adopts the “substitute stand-in” for turkey vultures. The eagles follow ducks and geese migrating south ahead of the water habitats freezing over. Here in Missouri the eagles still feed on sick and slow waterfowl, plus fish. However, the role of a scavenger is nothing to mock; it is a very important job in our foodwebs. Naturalists and biologists refer to the term “niche”, which pertains to the role or jobs a plant, an animal, fungi … serve in the natural world. The niches may change with habitats, the age of the animal or even the season of the year. Nevertheless, those serving the scavenger role fit in and are vital in all ecology life cycles.
Turkey vultures are solely scavengers. Their feet are weak, and the gripping power is a mere shadow of the owl species. I’ve known both personally at the zoo and in the wild. The turkey vultures don’t even carry off light weight dead rodents in flight. They may tug at something with their beak, but usually stay put where the carcass lays to feed.
The vulture head is bare of feathers making the art of carcass clean up an easier and “cleaner” task. The detection of these unfortunate road kills, diseased and winter starved quarry they target is a superpower in itself.
Black vultures and even the endangered condor (in California and the Grand Canyon area of northern Arizona) rely on sight over sense of smell. However, the turkey vulture has an incredible sense of smell. If you can focus in on a “T.V.”, you will easily see an open airway at the nares. This allows the airflow to transport the fragrances and odors unfailingly to the bird from great distances.
Science and in this case the life sciences are always important. This past 18 months of pandemic awareness has brought science methods and fields of study into the spotlight even more. People are more cognizant of viruses, bacteria, fungal infections, and single celled organisms. I believe wildlife such as our native turkey vulture is a true hero for all of us. They frequently are accepted as the “clean-up” crew, but vultures are also in the medical field of sorts. They simply stop disease spread with the niche they have in our environment. They cannot wear capes, but certainly deserve our appreciation and understanding. “Look up…it’s a bird, it’s a plane, no it’s our T.V.s sharing the sky with other superheroes.”