dexheimer

Sometimes rabbit holes appear in strange places, even in the sky.  This morning I was having Honeynut Cheerios for lunch and was enjoying them in the loft on the little table next to the big window that looks over the marsh. My phone was off but sitting right next to my bowl. As I stared down at the o’s and heart-shapes floating in the milk, I noticed movement across the screen. The bright blue sky reflected perfectly in my phone, and moving across the blue field was a large soaring bird. I looked up and saw a Turkey vulture make a few more lazy loops before disappearing over the house.  

I began to wonder what a Turkey vulture was doing in Wisconsin in February.  With the snow cover and frozen lakes, food must be scarce for these scavengers. I believed they migrated and if so, their arrival in February, only five days after the Sandhill Cranes, was another sign of spring. The most noteworthy story about vultures and migration is that they return en mass to Hinckley, Ohio each year on March 15th. This is counterpoint to the more famous return of the swallows to Capistrano on the Feast of St Joseph, March 19th. Hinckley is just south of Cleveland, which is on the south shore of Lake Erie. Turkey Vultures do not like to migrate over water. It makes sense that they would stop short of Cleveland. They share that instinct with humans. 

In this Cheerio induced rabbit hole I learned the truth about vultures migration. Some do, some don’t. When food becomes scarce in the northern states and Canada, these birds will migrate south as far a Central and South America. In the process, they may leapfrog over other vulture populations in the south and east US that don’t migrate.  They expend very little energy soaring which is good since they don’t eat on the way.  Following the land and avoiding water, they will concentrate in places where the geography narrows, such as Central America. They can average one to two hundred miles a day, and birds making the trip from Canada to Columbia can take several weeks. 

Because Turkey vultures rely on thermals to fly, they avoid night and early morning flying. The heat of the sun creates the thermals and so Turkey vultures wait until the land is sufficiently heated to generate the rising columns of air.  Cloudy days are generally rest days. 

If your rabbit hole leads you to search for Turkey vultures, you may discover that Ziggy Marley had a special affection for them. During Covid, he and his wife, Orly, wrote a children’s book about a vulture called Little John Crow. 

I’ll let you know if I liked it after it arrives from Amazon.