• Welcome to BirdForum, the internet's largest birding community with thousands of members from all over the world. The forums are dedicated to wild birds, birding, binoculars and equipment and all that goes with it.

    Please register for an account to take part in the discussions in the forum, post your pictures in the gallery and more.
ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

What Bird is this? (1 Viewer)

yeah, on stumpy tail, general posture, and tapering head/neck shape, these look like vultures to me. Definitely not hawks. I don't think I can definitely rule out eagle from these photos, though.

Vultures will soar whenever they can, but they'll flap when they need to.
 
I seriously doubt it. but always a possibility. Turkey vultures have long, narrow necks compared to hawks, eagles, kites, falcons, and ospreys. also, the flight style was very different from a vultures when they took of from the tree, the birds flapped 7-8 times before doing a 2-3 glide, a flight style used by hawks and eagles. Turkey vultures will instead mainly soar on thermal updrafts and rarely flap at all. But like I said, always a possibility.

When Turkey Vultures take off from trees... they do exactly what you described... flap a number of times before soaring briefly then flap a few more times until they find that thermal. The TVs wing beats are fuller and more complete as compared to the quick wing beats of a Black Vulture. I am pretty sure these are in fact Turkey Vultures.
 
Last edited:
I'm starting to believe these are turkey vultures and not eagles. I have some photos of them in flight where you can see the two toned appearance of a turkey vulture which I will be very happy to post as soon as I can.
 
It is hard to tell from the photographs but I am pretty sure they are Turkey Vultures.

Turkey Vultures are larger than Red-tailed Hawks and easier to identify at a distance when they are soaring which they do almost constantly, flapping their wings occasionally to stay within the thermals.

A month or so ago near my home, for a couple of days, 4 of them congregated around a dead tree similar to the one shown in the 1st post herein before they migrated south. I assumed they were a family because 2 of them had red heads and 2 of them did not, indicating they might have been this years fledglings.

Eagle are visibly much larger than Turkey Vultures which rock side to side when they are soaring and gliding, holding their wings in a high V shaped dihedral, while Bald Eagles have a large head and long neck and soar and glide on flat wings. Golden Eagles soar and glide with a slight dihedral.

Bob
 
Last edited:
Warning! This thread is more than 6 years ago old.
It's likely that no further discussion is required, in which case we recommend starting a new thread. If however you feel your response is required you can still do so.

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top