I didn't really have any silly shots left from Argentina, so for Saturday Fun this week, I'll hop forward to my return homewards via California. I stayed near the airport, since I was flying onwards after just 2 days, but I rented a car and the one full day I had I birded my way to Sonoma via Chain of Lakes in Golden Gate Park, then Las Gallinas water reclamation ponds in Marin County, then Ellis Creek water reclamation ponds in Petaluma. This juv Turkey Vulture, along with another juv and an adult, was standing by the shore of one of the reclamation ponds at Las Gallinas. I'd read on line that a Black Vulture had been seen there the day before. Black Vultures do sometimes hang around with Turkey Vultures (the latter having a better sense of smell, so better able to find carrion), but BVs are fairly rare in the North Bay Area, I think. So I wonder if maybe somebody mistook the juvs for BVs. The coloring (all black but for sort of a white collar around the head) would have been similar, but that big nostril is definitely Turkey Vulture, and both juvs were just beginning to turn red-faced, the other one a bit more than this one.
