{"id":293,"date":"2011-08-15T11:36:09","date_gmt":"2011-08-15T18:36:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.golubphoto.com\/blog\/?p=293"},"modified":"2011-08-15T11:36:09","modified_gmt":"2011-08-15T18:36:09","slug":"buzzard-visit-august-10-2011","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.golubphoto.com\/blog\/?p=293","title":{"rendered":"Buzzard Visit, August 10, 2011"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last Wednesday about ten in the morning, my wife called to me from outside our house.\u00c2\u00a0 She said the turkey vultures were flying very low and I should get my camera.\u00c2\u00a0 We live near the top of Greeley Hill where the up-slope winds allow big birds to soar for hours.\u00c2\u00a0 I already had my boots on and headed outside to see for myself.\u00c2\u00a0 She was right.\u00c2\u00a0 The buzzards were gliding just above the treetops.\u00c2\u00a0 I looked toward our driveway and saw a couple birds landing in a big sugar pine.\u00c2\u00a0 By my count, there were about ten or twelve vultures altogether, so I grabbed my camera.\u00c2\u00a0 My Nikon D3 and 200-400mm zoom were just what I needed.<\/p>\n

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This immature turkey vulture is coming in for a landing on a big bare limb of a sugar pine.\u00c2\u00a0 You can tell it is immature because of its black head.\u00c2\u00a0 Mature birds have a red head.<\/p>\n

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Gliding low over our property frightened the chickens and guineas.\u00c2\u00a0 I think vultures are the best flyers.\u00c2\u00a0 The adult birds\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 wingspans average about six feet.<\/p>\n

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In October 1975, I photographed this vulture near LaGrange drying its wings in the morning sun.\u00c2\u00a0 This image was part of a feature I did for Associated Press Features, published in January 1976.\u00c2\u00a0 I learned while photographing this group of about 30 birds not to approach them in a threatening manner because they vomit.\u00c2\u00a0 Whether this reaction is due to stress or to lighten their load for a quick takeoff, it is gross when you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re at the receiving end.\u00c2\u00a0 Remember, they eat mostly carrion, so the smell is bad to say the least.<\/p>\n

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Here, five of the buzzards roost on one of our sugar pines.<\/p>\n

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This vulture has just landed and his wings are still expanded.<\/p>\n

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A mature bird and a youngster have a minor territorial squabble.<\/p>\n

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Last Wednesday about ten in the morning, my wife called to me from outside our house.\u00c2\u00a0 She said the turkey vultures were flying very low and I should get my camera.\u00c2\u00a0 We live near the top of Greeley Hill where … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[302,20,301],"tags":[27,310,304,6,308,311,306,167,312,309,305,303,307],"class_list":["post-293","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birds","category-california-west","category-wildlife","tag-al-golub","tag-bird","tag-buzzard","tag-california","tag-carrion","tag-cathartes-aura","tag-glide","tag-greeley-hill","tag-protected","tag-scavenger","tag-soar","tag-turkey-vulture","tag-vomit"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.golubphoto.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.golubphoto.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.golubphoto.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.golubphoto.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.golubphoto.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=293"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.golubphoto.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.golubphoto.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.golubphoto.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.golubphoto.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}