Halloween...

Halloween cat...

Halloween pumpkin...

Halloween vulture...

Boo!
Happy Halloween

Have fun and don't eat too much candy!

Turkey Vulture Art...for the Halloween Spirit!

I love Turkey Vultures. They are amazing birds, and I've posted on them several times, but I've never painted one. So since it's the Halloween season, I thought I'd ride their stereotype and create a little Creepy Halloween Art!

I am the Vulture--Creepy Halloween Art I

(mixed media with electronic filters)

These paintings all started with photos I took while canoeing down the Little Miami River. I wanted to try some collage and mixed-media art...and experiment with a few PhotoShop filters, so I printed out my photos...cut out the birds...plastered them on paper...and painted eerie backgrounds of colors and shapes. I then scanned the paintings and ran them through about 5 filters, adjusting color, etc. I don't know how to use PhotoShop, so everything was a test. I still don't know how to use PhotoShop, but I know a little bit more about it...and it was really fun to combine traditional and electronic painting methods!

I am the Vulture--Creepy Halloween Art II

(mixed media with electronic filters)

I am the Vulture--Creepy Halloween Art III

(mixed media with electronic filters)

I am the Vulture--Creepy Halloween Art IV

(mixed media with electronic filters)

I hope you're enjoying autumn and the Halloween season!

For more bird art, head over to Birding is Fun! Robert has turned his blog into a multi-author blog and invited me to be a contributor. I just posted my first entry with three paintings of Chestnut-sided Warblers.

Turkey Vulture on the Little Miami River...

Yesterday Rick and I took the afternoon off work and headed up to Fort Ancient to go canoeing on the Little Miami. Canoeing is easy on the ankle (I have a "flat" right now), and when it's 100 degrees F, it's nice and cool on the river! We saw lots of birds...and turtles...and snakes...then as we rounded a bend, a horrible odor slammed us. "Oh my goodness...something must be dead," escaped my lips, and as I turned to the left, a Turkey Vulture (Cathartes aura), very busy at his trade, looked up at me...

Turkey Vulture (Cathartes aura) along the Little Miami River

Turkey Vultures are interesting birds to look at. They don't have the "cuteness" of small woodland birds or the fierceness of raptors, but there is something special about them that I like. Their eyes are actually beautiful--soft brown-grey and perfectly round, and the long downward turn to their jawline makes them appear mournful and resolute.

We all know Turkey Vultures are carrion eaters, and their razor-sharp, hooked beaks are perfect for the job, allowing them to slice through muscle with ease, but another adaptation that helps them scavenge dead animals are their very rough and rasp-like tongues, which allow them to "lick" or pull meat off the bones. (Source: "Birds of Forest, Yard, and Thicket," by John Eastman).

...and those crazy red, wrinkly, and bald heads! They are so unusual I have to stop and study them every time I see one. I've know since school days, and you probably do too, that their peculiar-looking heads are an adaptation that allows the birds to root into carcasses without coating feathers with bacteria-rich decomposing flesh...but how can they eat the contaminated meat without getting sick? They possess a "corrosive digestive system" that kills disease-causing bacteria such as Salmonella, E. coli, and the bacteria that causes hog cholera, anthrax, and botulism (Eastman, pg 103).

...so not only do vultures clean up messes for us, they prevent the spread of disease.

I always thought Turkey Vultures found most of their meals by smell, but I recently read they use sight as well and have vision equal to that of hawks. An animal must be dead at least 12 hours before a Turkey Vulture can detect the gasses released by decay, and they prefer "fresher carcasses over badly rotted ones" (Eastman, 102), so they use their sight to detect weak, dying (unmoving animals) and other scavengers or vultures who have already found a carcass.

Our Turkey Vulture had definitely found his meal by smell, as the odor was quite powerful and the carcass was well hidden under a downed tree in a shaded area by the shore. He honed in on it quickly too, as just a few minutes earlier we saw him soar over us and around the bend. Who knew he could find the carcass so quickly once he picked up the scent! There was only one Turkey Vulture at the sight, so it had to have been him.

International Vulture Awareness Day 2009

Last April, Rick, Matty and I went to Clifty Falls State Park in Indiana for spring break where we saw Turkey Vultures galore! Riding on thermals and circling out over the Ohio river, fourteen of them put on quite a show outside our fourth-floor balcony...

Being almost eye-level with the Turkey Vultures in flight

was so much fun! They would float past our balcony over

and over on giant loops as they circled over the Ohio River

and then circled back past our room. In every return flight,

they seemed to be eyeing me and the camera!

For more Turkey Vulture photos and the earlier

posts from our Clifty Falls trip, click here.

"Today, bloggers from all over the world are spreading the love for vultures by participating in the IVAD09 virtual event. All participants of IVAD09 aim to raise awareness about the important role vultures play in our environment and the alarming problems vultures are facing today. Birdlife.org posted: ‘The world needs to learn to love vultures – or lose them.'"

Turkey Vultures raising and spreading their wings in the sun...

Just before dinner, I went out on our balcony at the Clifty Inn and saw these three Turkey Vultures just hanging out around the fire pit. The scene took me by surprise and was sort of comical. To see these huge birds walking around on the ground, preening now and then, and basically acting cool, was like looking over the fence in the Munster's back yard!

Dude, what's for dinner?

This is the reason you always use a tablecloth in TV country...

The sun was out, but just barely. It was mostly under a cloud, but suddenly, the cloud cover broke and the sun burst forth at full strength. Like a choreographed dance, the three birds immediately turned around so their backs were to the sun and lifted their wings...at the same time and in the same way. 

...very cool to watch, but sort of creepy too! It looks 

like there is something really important in the fire pit...

I was focused on the middle bird, and after I clicked my 

camera, he turned his head around an looked at me. 

I wonder if he was the same one giving me the eye in 

the previous flight photos?

Beak Bit

It was fun to watch the vultures because as soon as the sun would go back under a cloud, they would drop their wings, turn around and start preening or walking around. Then again, as the sun came out, they would turn their backs and lift and spread their wings, fully extended. Matty wondered what they were doing, and I know other birds will use the sun to heat up parasites (mites) in their feathers to kill them, so I assumed the vultures were doing the same thing. Last night I did a little research and found, yes, they use the sun to kill parasites (or to heat up the mites to get them to move so they could be more easily preened off), but they also raise or spread their wings for other reasons.

To kill the bacteria that coats their wings after eating carrion. After the Turkey Vultures eat, they are often covered with nasty bacteria from their decaying meal. The sun's ultraviolet rays effectively kill the bacteria on the wings. Turkey vultures can eat decaying and contaminated meat because of enzymes and bacteria in their digestive systems. As a means of defense, Turkey Vultures will projectile vomit just like Great Blue Herons. Throwing up fish is one thing, but throwing up rotten, decayed and contaminated meat is another. Yuck!

To warm themselves on cold mornings. Turkey vultures can lower their body temp to conserve energy at night, but in the morning, they need to warm up to be able to fly. The outstretched wings absorb the heat from the solar energy and soon warm up enough to take off. When the TVs take off, they use their incredible sense of smell to detect carrion. Turkey Vultures can even find natural gas leaks because the additive to the normally odorless gas (ethyl mercaptan) is a chemical similar to the one let off by decaying meat.  

Turkey vultures eat mostly carrion and therefore do Mother Nature a great service. Their feet and beaks are weak, and they can't carry food like a raptor or kill like one. Their cousins, the Black Vulture have stronger beaks, and sometimes kill food. Turkey Vultures never circle a dying animal. They circle and ride thermals, and seek dead things by picking up the odor.

For close-ups of a Turkey Vulture, click here. 

Turkey Vultures at Clifty Falls, Indiana

When I think of Clifty Falls, I think of Turkey Vultures. Years ago, Rick and I were there and we saw over 40 vultures spiraling over the Ohio River at the same time. It was an amazing sight. A sturdy observation tower just past the visitor's center offers perfect viewing. This time, there weren't as many TVs soaring past (it's spring, previously we were there for their return in the fall), but I was able to see them from our 4th floor balcony which was fun! They were almost eye level at times and quite amazing. The most I saw flying together on Thursday was 14. They were spiraling and soaring out over the Ohio River looking very cool...and impressive. I also saw a Black Vulture, which was a lifer for me. 

It was late afternoon, and this guy kept soaring 

past our balcony. He seems to be giving me the 

eye, which is a bit unnerving. Thank goodness 

I like TVs and think they are sort of cute.

I like this series of photos because you can see the 

shift in color of the sky. The first photo the sun was 

more at my back. As he soared past, he flew more 

into the sun. You can watch the sky get less blue. 

...he still is giving me the eye. I was tired 

after a big day of hiking, but not that tired!

I'm still learning how to shoot using light. If you haven't seen it already, for a nice lesson on shooting blue skies without filters, see this post on Shooting my Universe by Steve. 

A few more flight photos. He had turned around and was on his way back...