Michigan Thread - all are welcome!

[Folly's place]

I've never seen a black vulture here either. They are southern, at least so far. Immature turkey vultures don't have that red head, which might be confusing. I had to look that up last fall. And big soaring birds can be difficult to ID also.
As I understand, turkey buzzards only eat carrion, while black vultures might go after living prey.
Mary

 

[fuzzi]

I can't find an example on the internet, but Roger Tory Peterson said that eagles soar with wings like an airplane, straight out, as do most hawks. Ospreys and some hawks "crook" their wings, but vultures slant their winds upwards, like a wide "V", or dihedral.

Turkey vulture

Note the two-tone coloration under a vulture's wings

 

[Sally PB]

Note the two-tone coloration under a vulture's wings

The vultures we see around here have all/nearly all black on the underside of their wings. I'm quite sure they're turkey vultures; they have the (ugly!) red head.

 

[Dreamzchaser]

I have easily mistaken turkeys for vultures because they just look alike as creepy too. Vultures like warm weather and also eat decomposing left meat like dead animals.

 

[1muttsfan]

I've never seen a black headed vulture in Michigan, but see them often wintertimes in Florida. They are pretty easy to tell apart. Your neighbor might not be the best at bird ID.
And turkey vultures may possibly go after very young birds that were isolated, but are not a risk to healthy adults.

Yes I see that it is not Ingham county. By maybe 1/2 mile.

 

[Chickin Fairy]

I've never seen a black headed vulture in Michigan, but see them often wintertimes in Florida. They are pretty easy to tell apart. Your neighbor might not be the best at bird ID.
And turkey vultures may possibly go after very young birds that were isolated, but are not a risk to healthy adults.

Yes I see that it is not Ingham county. By maybe 1/2 mile.

Eaton and Ingham are very close! Lansing straddles both counties with Waverly Road being the dividing line. I used to work on Waverly and live west of there, all just within Eaton.

I don't think she's very good at bird ID, but she sure is loud about it.

 

[Sally PB]

"Don't raise your voice, improve your argument."

 

[Sammster]

We have vultures and hawk in our area. And on rare occasion, we see an eagle. We are in the burbs, but there are lakes all around us.

See the eagle in my avatar. For a couple days in a row, back in 2017, it used my tree to rest in. We have a cottonwood, and it's the tallest tree for miles.

I slowly crept out back with my camera and lay on the ground for half an hour, taking pictures. It was so exciting!
Then I heard it's mate screech, and off they flew, together.

Then one day, not the same year, my DH was sitting in his recliner by the picture window. His parrot, Kady was on his legs. An eagle spotted Kady and flew straight at the window! At the last moment, it swooped straight up. Maybe it saw my DH, or it's own reflection. TG it didn't hit the window! Well, by this time, Kady was up DH's shorts' leg. That was very traumatic for her.

When we are outside with Kady, and she tilts her eye up - we know she sees a predator, even if it only looks like a dot to us.

 

[Chickin Fairy]

We have vultures and hawk in our area. And on rare occasion, we see an eagle. We are in the burbs, but there are lakes all around us.

See the eagle in my avatar. For a couple days in a row, back in 2017, it used my tree to rest in. We have a cottonwood, and it's the tallest tree for miles.

I slowly crept out back with my camera and lay on the ground for half an hour, taking pictures. It was so exciting!
Then I heard it's mate screech, and off they flew, together.

Then one day, not the same year, my DH was sitting in his recliner by the picture window. His parrot, Kady was on his legs. An eagle spotted Kady and flew straight at the window! At the last moment, it swooped straight up. Maybe it saw my DH, or it's own reflection. TG it didn't hit the window! Well, by this time, Kady was up DH's shorts' leg. That was very traumatic for her.

When we are outside with Kady, and she tilts her eye up - we know she sees a predator, even if it only looks like a dot to us.

Eagles are beautiful! We have a nest not too terribly far from us and occasionally we see them fly over the house. Poor Kady! I'm glad she and the eagle were both okay. My chickens do that cockeyed look-up thing, too. My roo alarms when the turkey vultures are around and I have to reassure them it's okay. Hawks, different story.

 

[fuzzi]

"Don't raise your voice, improve your argument."

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