Charles Darwin was certainly not impressed with Turkey Vultures when he first saw them. He noted, “These disgusting birds, with their bald, scarlet heads, formed to revel in putridity.” Yet he seems to have had a better opinion of condors when he wrote, “It is truly wonderful and beautiful to see so great a bird, […]
Finding Unseen Carrion In 1979, David Houston did a study on the efficiency of Turkey Vultures finding carrion by smell. The study was conducted in the tropical forests of Barro Colorado Island, Panama. Setting out dead chickens from fresh to four days old, he discovered that Turkey Vultures within tropical forests rely almost exclusively on […]
What kind of a vulture is that? If you are in the Cody area, you know it’s a Turkey Vulture. Turkey vultures are the only vulture that migrates to Wyoming for the warmer months, where they help keep our environment clean and disease free by dining on dead animals. In the southern parts of our […]
When I was younger, if you had asked me what you called a group of birds, I would have promptly responded, “A flock.” The answer, however, is much more fun and interesting than that. There are many nonscientific names for groups of birds. Sometimes they are poetic, sometimes whimsical and some group names are more […]
Some of you might not be aware that Suli, the Raptor Experience’s turkey vulture, turned three earlier this month. Just like every three-year-old in America, we felt she needed to have a birthday party to mark this milestone and we wanted it to be a BIG deal. So for weeks, we planned, built, tested, and schemed […]
Suli is so homely to me that she is so cute. Being a turkey vulture, she is not as “glamorous” as some of the other raptors in the Buffalo Bill Center of the West’s Draper Museum Raptor Experience program in my opinion. However, after being part of the maiden voyage to a brand new show that will […]