Turkey Vulture

Cathartes aura

Distribution: North, Central and South America. 

Habitat: Wide variety from lightly timbered, open countryside, woodlands, grassland, savannah to coastal deserts, also in forests when canopy cover is slightly open. 

Food: Mainly carrion; especially corpses of small mammals, fish offal, mammal faeces and occasionally rotting vegetables. 

Facts: 

• Voice: Usually silent, a few low hisses and raucous grunts; audible only at close range.
• Occasionally performs stylised courtship dance on ground.
• Roosts communal (often several hundred) in tall trees or buildings.
• Highly developed olfactory senses (sense of smell).
• Less gregarious than other vulture species, often seen in two’s and three’s, but during migration may travel in loose flocks of several thousand.
• Forages/hunts by quartering at a fairly low to medium height, often locating food by smell if carcass is hidden by vegetation.  

The Turkey Vulture's head is bald and red.  Its plumage is primarily dark brown. In flight, the underside of the flight feathers appears silver or white. 

They can fly with their wings in a dihedral (v-shape). They are most graceful in flight, and can soar for up to 6 hours at high altitudes without ever flapping their wings. They mainly fly in the afternoon when the air is warm to get lift in the rising warm air.

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