A few weeks ago in this space we looked at the osprey and the bald eagle – two wonderful raptors with breathtaking wingspans, both of which are rapidly increasing their population in our area.
Three other common local birds also have such huge wingspans, but they’re very different from the eagle and osprey, and also from each other.
Turkey vultures are probably seen more often in our area than any other bird of prey… maybe more than all the others put together. They often form a wide V with their wings, then keep them steady as they float, glide, and drift on the thermal currents in the air. These are the same thermals lifting sailplanes from Dansville, Harris Hill, and Big Flats. Vultures scarcely ever flap their wings in flight, soaring just like those sleek lovely aircraft.
The comparison ends there. They’ve got naked heads and creepy faces, and they make ungainly lurches while on land. In the morning you’ll sometimes catch a whole treeful of them spreading out their wings so the sun can dry the dew. You feel like you’ve just crossed into the Twilight Zone.
Moreover they’re birds of prey only by courtesy. Vultures are part of nature’s clean-up crew, feasting on the dead. (They love roadkill.) From miles away their incredibly acute sense of smell detects carrion, even if only a few minutes old, and they zero in with a glide from all points of the compass. It may be gag-inducing, but where would we be without them?
When can you find them? All year round. Where can you find them? Everywhere. Curiously, they’ve congregated for many years in the northwest quadrant of Bath village, where you’ll often see two or three dozens in a kettle – a spiraling collection, circling upward on the thermals. You never seem to see them arrive, and yet they grow more numerous by the minute.
The turkey vulture has a six-foot wingspan… right at the top range for ospreys, and the bottom range for eagles.
We have two other birds with a wingspan almost reaching six foot, and one’s the great blue heron. A great blue (who seems more grey to me) is a wading bird that looks like it was put together from an Erector set. By an alien who’d heard about birds, but never actually seen one.
It stalks or strides or wades through shallow water and deep grass, often bending its long neck down and peering below. It may freeze for long minutes, waiting out its prey, then dart its spear-like beak to catch or spear a frog or fish.
These birds build large stick nests gathered close together in a rookery… a sort of arboreal apartment building for heron baby boomers. Of course they like this to be near water, and you can sometimes see these rookeries from I-86 rest stops along the Chemung or Susquehanna.
Great blue herons have long legs, long bodies, long necks, and long beaks. And broad wings with wide spans – 70 inches or so, comparable to the osprey.
So if you spot a bird with a really wide wingspan of six feet or so, here’s a little mini-field guide for our area.
White head and tail with dark body – bald eagle.
Crook in the wings – osprey.
Wings in a gentle upward vee – turkey vulture.
Broad wings, long trailing legs, neck folded back, probably flying low – great blue heron.
Flying in an organized flock, and probably honking to beat the band – Canada goose. But that’s another column, all its own.