What's Up With the Vultures?
I like to bird. Have I ever mentioned that? Birding is what "birdwatching" is now called, at least by those of us who do it as a hobby. I'll bird anywhere, anytime. Saturday night I birded Blood Diamond. It's always fun to bird movies. Usually I have to identify the birds by the songs I hear on the soundtrack. Curiously in Blood Diamond, I kept hearing the "trees, trees, murmuring trees" song of the black-throated green warbler whenever Leo was in the jungle. I think the movie was filmed in Africa so the black-throated greens I was hearing in the movie were either there in Africa or else it's a sound-alike bird. That or the Foley artists got it wrong.
I also bird while driving. I scan the trees, sky, and light poles for whatever happens to be on display. Birding while driving sounds less dangerous than it is. I should have a bumper sticker on my car that reads "Caution: I'm birding but it feels like I'm driving."
Anyway, I've noticed around the mid-Atlantic area the population of vultures - particularly black vultures - is really taking off. I am seeing vultures everywhere. A few years ago, I never saw vultures perched on the overhead streetlights as I drove to work. Now it's routine. Today I saw a couple poles with one vulture perched on them and one pole with three - three! - vultures perched on it. I know it's not my imagination... I'm telling you I'm seeing a lot more vultures than before. Let me tell you, seeing a bunch of vultures hanging around looks very, very weird. I guess having more vultures is a direct consequence of Maryland's plan to control the deer population using the automobile direct-impact approach.
There is roadkill galore.
K-
When they start circling overhead ...
We don't have vultures around here. That I know of. Now that they've made their way to Maryland, I guess it's just a matter of time before Springfield gets them.
On another note, I think it's so cool you can identify bird songs. I wouldn't know a bird song if I heard it.
Rob, I see them circling overhead frequently. Well, not over me but over something. I'll also see 18 of them on the ground crowded around a carcass.
Marie, I'm surprised you don't have vultures in Illinois. I thought they were everywhere. Look for a large, dark soaring bird holding its wings in a shallow "v"; that is a vulture. And you do know birdsongs though you may not realize it. There's the "caw-caw-caw" of the American crow and the sing-songy "cheer-up, cheerily, cheer-up, cheerily" song of the American robin, the honking of Canada geese, it's all birdsong.
K-
Black vultures are fairly common here now but I never saw them when I was a kid. First saw them in Mississippi. The locals wrongly referred to them as buzzards (Probably still do) but they were black vultures. I only recognize a few bird songs. I always know when my bluebirds are around. These days, the cardinals are happily serenading their mates from the treetops and that little bitty Carolina wren must be using a megaphone.