Turkey Vulture

Meet "Matilda" the Turkey Vulture! She doesn't have any disabling injuries. She is a human imprint.  When Mattie was a baby vulture, the tree she and her parents were nesting in was cut down which caused her parents to leave abruptly abandoning her. 

Matilda came to the Medina Raptor Center in June of 1998, and was nothing more than a downy white chick the size of a baseball.  A parking lot had been under construction and a huge area of trees had been cut down to make way for the paving.  The lumberjacks had taken the trees to the sawmill and were loading them onto the conveyor headed for the wood saw when they heard hissing coming from a hole in one of the trees.  They peered into the hole with a flashlight and weren’t quite sure what it was they were seeing but they got really nervous.  They contacted Laura Jordan at the Medina Raptor Center and she rushed to the sawmill.  When she saw the tiny vulture, she knew it needed help.  She got her out of  the tree hole with the help of some large sticks…the big, burly lumberjacks were too frightened by the incessant hissing to help!  Laura took her back to the raptor center to raise, rehabilitate and release her. 

She did everything she could to discourage imprinting but, at that time, didn’t know that you can’t raise a baby vulture by itself.  Needless to say, when it came time to release the young vulture, it wasn’t pretty.  Mattie was released on a 5 acre wooded area after Laura and a Metroparks Ranger hauled a huge deer out to a field to encourage her to find her own carrion and eat  She took up with a large group of vultures for about 2-3 weeks but she never touched the deer.  And while the other vultures spent most of their time roosting in the trees, Mattie spent most of her time on the ground.  Then, not once but twice, she swooped down on a little boy sitting on a picnic table and tried to steal his bologna sandwich.  Laura was called again and found Mattie weak, dehydrated, malnourished, stumbling and missing a toe.  She took her back to the Raptor Center and she has been our education vulture ever since.  And, like most educational turkey vultures (especially imprints), Mattie is extremely particular about her handlers.  She picks and chooses who she will allow the “privilege” of handling her. 

About Turkey Vultures
(Information taken from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology)

Although it has an ugly, bare-skinned face, the Turkey Vulture is beautiful on the wing. Seldom does this graceful and talented bird flap its wings as it soars over large areas searching for carrion.

Description

• Large soaring bird.
• Long wings and tail.
• Body feathers entirely blackish-brown.
• Red head mostly unfeathered.
• Size: 64-81 cm (25-32 in)
• Wingspan: 170-178 cm (67-70 in)
• Weight: 2000 g (70.6 ounces)
• Flight feathers on wings appear silvery-gray underneath, contrasting with the darker wing linings.
• Red head mostly unfeathered.
• Relatively short, hooked bill ivory-colored.
• Soars for long periods, flaps wings infrequently and slowly.
• While soaring holds wings slightly up in a V shape.

Sex Differences

• Sexes appear similar, but female slightly larger.

Immature

• Juvenile has gray head with black beak tip.

Food

• Wide variety of carrion, from small mammals to dead cows. Also some insects, other invertebrates, and some fruit.

Range

Summer Range:

• Breeds from southern Canada throughout the United States and southward through southern South America and the Caribbean. Local or absent in Great Plains.

Winter Range:

• Winters from northern California, Mexican border, eastern Texas, southern Missouri, and southern New York southward throughout the southeastern United States and south.

Habitat

• Prefers rangeland and areas of mixed farmland and forest.
• Roosts in large trees or on large urban buildings.

Behavior

Foraging:

• Soars over large distances and detects carrion by sight and smell.

Reproduction

Nest Type:

• No nest structure. Puts eggs directly on ground in caves, crevices, mammal burrows, hollow logs, under fallen trees, or in abandoned buildings.

Egg Description:

• Creamy-white with dark blotches around large end.

Clutch Size:

• Usually 2 eggs. Range: 1-3.

Condition at Hatching:

• Downy and helpless. Unable to hold head up, but can hiss.

Conservation Status

• Overall North American populations have increased over the last few decades and the breeding range has expanded northward.

Sound

• Usually silent. Makes hiss at carcasses, roosts, and nest.

Our Other Educational Birds:

American Kestrel
Bald Eagle
Barred Owl
Great Blue Heron
Great Horned Owl
Peregrine Falcon
Red Tailed Hawk
Red-shouldered Hawk
Rough Legged Hawk
Saw Whet Owl
Screech Owl
Trumpeter Swan
Turkey Vulture

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