BajaNomad - sopilotes at dinner time

sopilotes at dinner time

woody with a view - 6-4-2010 at 07:37 PM

one evening we noticed a peculiar odor and noticed the birds gathering down the beach. the next day the birds were right out front and the smell was horrid!

nothing goes to waste in baja......

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Udo - 6-4-2010 at 07:39 PM

I've been there, woody!

Those vutures are fearless.

after the feast

woody with a view - 6-4-2010 at 08:06 PM

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DianaT - 6-4-2010 at 08:21 PM

Good ones Woody, very good.

I love these birds---they do a great job.

woody with a view - 6-4-2010 at 08:24 PM

something funny about the first foto. does any one else see the four legged sopilote? :?:

DianaT - 6-4-2010 at 08:28 PM

Yes, I see the four legs---strange one

[Edited on 6-5-2010 by DianaT]

BornFisher - 6-4-2010 at 08:37 PM

I love dead seals and anything that eats them! Hey I fish!
First pic of the four legged buzzard is a good one. Reminds me of something but I can`t remember what! Nice pics!

woody with a view - 6-4-2010 at 08:56 PM

and then, Wile E. showed up.....

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irenemm - 6-5-2010 at 12:11 AM

those birds are so awesome. We had about 100 or so that lived in our trees a few years ago. Could not figure out why they lived here. Until someone said they are just waiting for all the old people to die.
So all the old people went some where else. So did the birds.
nice pictures woody

Bob and Susan - 6-5-2010 at 07:54 AM

4 drum-sticks!!! :saint:

DianaT - 6-5-2010 at 08:00 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Bob and Susan
4 drum-sticks!!! :saint:

OK, enjoy those drumsticks, but then who is going to clean up all the stinky dead stuff on your beach? :biggrin:

One thing that surprised me about these creatures is that they do not have talons like the birds of prey. I saw some photos of a lady who rescued one---it was very young and had a broken wing that never healed.

She used the bird when giving talks about birds in the desert. She was able to handle the bird without gloves. They don't need the sharp talons as they do not kill anything. She also said they were quite picky about their meals---needed to be dead for a certain amount of time.

We see that here all the time. They will hang around for a few days until the beach kill is just ripe!

Good coyote picture, Woody Thanks

Mulegena - 6-5-2010 at 08:14 AM

Three Cheers for the Clean-Up Crew!!!

These wonderful guys are completely self-sustaining in the wild. They have wonderful sight and super-fantastic olfactory sense-- can smell death from miles away and downwind and are there faster than Baja Pack Overnight Delivery to have at it!

However they are high-maintenance birds to have as pets or rehab animals. They are complete carnivores (read expensive to feed), dirty and smelly and attract other zopolotes to your environs ("Hey, Paco! That dude down there in that house has some good grub-- let's go steal it!") I kid you not, other buzzards will be circling your house and landing in your garden and on the neighbor's rooftops.

Oh, another thing: did I mention that a defense mechanism of theirs when feeling threatened is to throw up--- all over you!?!

All this has happened to me and more when we took in a zopolote with a broken wing. Lorraine, the veterinarian kindly set the bone twice, but to no avail. It did not heal, but necrotized.

We now call our backyard "Buzzbeak's Garden" in honor of our rehabing houseguest.

DianaT - 6-5-2010 at 08:28 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Mulegena
Three Cheers for the Clean-Up Crew!!!

These wonderful guys are completely self-sustaining in the wild. They have wonderful sight and super-fantastic olfactory sense-- can smell death from miles away and downwind and are there faster than Baja Pack Overnight Delivery to have at it!

However they are high-maintenance birds to have as pets or rehab animals. They are complete carnivores (read expensive to feed), dirty and smelly and attract other zopolotes to your environs ("Hey, Paco! That dude down there in that house has some good grub-- let's go steal it!") I kid you not, other buzzards will be circling your house and landing in your garden and on the neighbor's rooftops.

Oh, another thing: did I mention that a defense mechanism of theirs when feeling threatened is to throw up--- all over you!?!

All this has happened to me and more when we took in a zopolote with a broken wing. Lorraine, the veterinarian kindly set the bone twice, but to no avail. It did not heal, but necrotized.

We now call our backyard "Buzzbeak's Garden" in honor of our rehabing houseguest.

I think about that habit of throwing up every time I try to get close to one to take a photo----would not be a pleasant experience.

The Arizonia Audubon lady said they actually went out and scraped up road kill for the bird----that would not be fun!

When we lived in Honduras they used to land on the wall of our patio and watch us do laundry in the pila----was a little uncomfortable as we were not sure what they were waiting for. At least you know that it is the other buzzard that is attracting them. :biggrin:

[Edited on 6-5-2010 by DianaT]

Buzzards

Osprey - 6-5-2010 at 06:36 PM

Keeping My Cool

They're big, black, ugly and they're up there every day. Zopilotes, Turkey Vultures. Also called Buzzards they are almost three feet long, six feet of broad black wings, weigh about four pounds. As I lie comfortably in a lounge chair, Bloody Mary in hand, composing articles and stories for magazines and the press, I can enjoy them, just overhead. I have always admired the birds, envied their aerial elegance, the exquisite freedom flight accords them, a freedom I can never know. From time to time I have used the birds to color my stories about this part of Mexico. So far my descriptions of the birds in flight have been impossibly bland, add little to the stories -- "the big, black birds wheeling, gliding on the thermals, etc.,etc.....". Better to leave them out than to paint such a colorless scene. Fellow writers have failed to capture the majesty of the creatures --"they wheel, soar, glide -- hover, hang like big kites...ya da, ya da, ya da...." I need to really watch them awhile; get to know them, pay attention, find the words that may bring them to life, paint them against the sky with the same grandeur we lavish on the their cousins, the eagles.

If I tilt my lounge chair back a little I can watch them without moving a muscle. Today several birds are aloft just above my patio, the wind is strong and gusty; a good day for observation. Now that I pay the proper attention I can see why the words fail. They are not just soaring, wheeling; they are in constant motion. This wind is not a steady flow of cool air rushing from the beach, up this little bluff to my house. It is not a stream of air, rather, it is great puffs; pulsing, softly now, a powerful gust, soft again, little short bursts, more gusts, a shoulder against an invisible door. The birds are not possessed of a special kind of vision, some precognitive way to see the wind, anticipate the wind's wild vacillations, changes taking place in tiny parts of seconds; all the birds' moves are adjustments--made at lightning speed, each subtle movement of muscle, bone and feather in wondrous harmony.

These birds are not flying. Flying is flapping wings to propel the bird forward. Each vulture is making adjustments at incredible speed -- the result allows the bird to stay aloft, in the same general area, without burning precious calories needed for great flapping movements of the wings. As the wind gusts and wanes they fold the wrist of the wing, spread their primaries at the wing tips, fold and lower the broad tail feathers, smooth the small coverts -- constantly rearranging the surfaces touched by the wind. At times they roll their bodies, tip both wings to decrease the lift; in this attitude they slip downward and to the side, take up a new station a short distance away at the same height.

Now I can begin to understand what they are doing. The new and bigger question is "Why in the hell are they doing it?" The second Bloody Mary helps me get closer. I let my mind and body drift aloft, enter the spirit of the black weavers. I imagine being buffeted by the wind gusts. I tighten my small shrunken thumb, slightly folding a wing as the wind abates. Tiny muscles are now moving my wingtip primary feathers to stabilize my horizontal attitude.

A breakthrough, a revelation. The big birds are using no more energy to make these miraculous adjustments than I do when I turn slightly in my chair, toward the beach, to see a passing boat. Now some eduction is called for: these birds, just above my head, have been in the air all morning. Since they have sharp eyes and an uncanny sense of smell (they can smell carrion from hundreds of feet in the air to a radius of five miles) they would have discovered anything edible on the ground after the first few minutes. If we rule out this stationary routine as a part of mating, it can only mean that the birds are up in the wind to regulate their body temperature and to conserve energy/calories. They eat on the average of two to three times per month. It may be that they use less energy aloft, on the wind, than when at rest, roosting on the ground or on a cactus. On cold, wet mornings I have seen them stretch their broad wings to catch the morning sun -- the same birds hold this Kodak Moment pose, let the breeze dissipate the heat from their wings on July and August afternoons.

All this study has heated me up. I put down my glass, walked to the outdoor shower for a cool change of pace, walked cool and dripping back to the lounge, resumed my studies. Now things are taking a very different perspective -- these birds were roosting, sensed the wind, HAD to go aloft to conserve energy for as long as possible; to live another day to hunt for scarce roadkill. It's like they have a job. They dare not stay on the ground, on the roost if there is an opportunity to conserve energy or body fat -- their lives depend on their being able to use the wind whenever and wherever possible. This grand freedom I have so envied turns out to be a life-or-death injunction, not a flight of fancy.

Two of the beasts are now hovering very low, close to my position. They are c-cking their ugly, red heads to get a better look -- the eyes have a nasty leer -- curiosity? Did we, however briefly, trade places? While my mind's eye floated with them, did they sense, if only for seconds, my mystical intrusion, drop down to enter my cooler world? Could it now be envy?

I'll make sure tomorrow. I may bring out a little bucket of ice, make some more Bloody Mary's --- this time with real blood.

Udo - 6-5-2010 at 07:19 PM

George...

You are an artist with words, as well as research.

Some people decide to count the number of posts a Nomad has made, with their free time, and you, my friend, wisely use your time to do research, and then write down the results of the research. And whatever time you have left, you fish in the world's largest fish pond. :biggrin:

Barbareno - 6-6-2010 at 07:02 AM

You can learn something new every day by reading here. Barfing buzzards.

one for you, Gavilon

woody with a view - 6-6-2010 at 07:33 AM

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Osprey - 6-6-2010 at 08:19 AM

Great shot Woody. Mexicans I know don't use Gavilan. Around here they all call the Osprey "Falcon Playera", T - Shirt Falcon, cause of his white front. The ones around my beach are lousy fishermen --- capture rate: 1 for 9 on average.

KASHEYDOG - 6-10-2010 at 04:24 PM

Great pics Woody. Thanks kasheydog in O.B. 619 224 0808 on Point Loma Ave

KAT54 - 6-10-2010 at 05:16 PM

Phone number?
Address?
Pickup line?
Kasheydog man or woman?