Native plants for a Cape Cod garden

Photo by Mark Peters

I was watching the Weather Channel at a local bar last night and saw an unusual sight, 3 black vultures videoptaped in New Jersey holding their wings out as if they were frozen; the caption on the screen read “Frozen Vultures in New Jersey”.

Alarmed by the thought that they had not migrated  where they should be migrating to and that these poor birds were confused and freezing to death, I did a little research and found out that not only were they actually where they should be, but as of the past several years the number of these unusual birds has been on the incline in the northern states. They were not frozen, but were in fact probably just sunning themselves to get warm. 

The National Audubon Society released a study in 2009 that showed the winter range of the birds to have moved 51.9 miles to the north over the past four decades. Other, more ominous changes were noted as well. Peter Dunne, director of the New Jersey Audubon Society’s Cape May Bird Observatory, said: “Courtship and breeding is increasingly earlier. Egg-laying is earlier. What’s remarkable about this is the change seems to be occurring so quickly. Our assumption is it takes hundreds of years. No, it doesn’t.” 

These birds are no longer migrating south in droves and they’re moving to more northern territories year after year. An article in the New York Times back in 2006 stated that New Jersey may have as many as 5,000 turkey vultures as well as black vultures; some locals had attributed vulture population explosion to a growing landfill across the Delaware River. In the past 10 years, about 200 turkey vultures have famously made their home in the quaint town of Wenonah New Jersey. A group of bird lovers, concerned about their bad image problem, have made a point of giving these birds some good PR by instituting a yearly event called the East Coast Vulture Festival.

On a positive note, perhaps the laws that protect these birds from being hunted and the elimination of pollutants like DDT’s build up in the environment have helped create a growth of almost 2% a year in North America. Whether you fear them or love them, it’s hard to ignore these intelligent, enormously large birds.

Here are some fun facts about vultures that live in this part of the world:

• A group of vultures is called a wake
• Vultures have an elevated hind toe for walking
• Vultures cool their body and clean bacteria off their feet by urinating on their legs
• Vultures do not possess a voice box so they are nearly silent, except for hisses and grunts
• Vultures do not build a nest
• Vultures may be more closely related to storks than hawks and eagles

 

Whatever you do, I wouldn’t disturb a turkey vulture:

“The Turkey vulture is well known for its defense tactic of vomiting.  When disturbed, this bird will regurgitate its last meal, both surprising its assailant and leaving a smell so putrid that the animal loses interest in pursuing the vulture.” (Quote from vultures.homestead.com).