We often see Turkey Vultures circling high overhead in thermals rising from, in these parts, sun-heated asphalt parking lots and roads, always on the alert for roadkill. A trio paused for a rest in the trees out front and I managed to get one mediocre portrait against an overcast sky:
They’re staggeringly ugly up close and awkward on the ground, but graceful in their natural element…
I was out riding towards Boulder not too long ago and was surprised to see, down in the drainage ditch hence out of the eyeline of drivers, a dead deer with four vultures working on it. They were _huge_. When I see them up in the air it doesn’t occur to me that they’re the size of golden retrievers.
Sort of like those C-5 cargo planes the ANG used to fly out of Stewart, which looked like they were hanging in the sky. You can’t believe such a big thing is that far away, so it must be flying at 10 mph…