Turkey Vulture (Cathartes aura)

County List:

Rule:

Mixed Forested/Nonforested or Nonforested Landscapes

Nesting and Foraging Habitats are distributed over the NEIGHBORHOOD

Nesting Habitat:
      Rock Bluff
      or Man-made Structure 
      or Snag

Foraging Habitat:
      Grass
      or Upland Brush
      or Savanna
      or Fields/Pasture

Habitat List:

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Literature:

Habitat: The Turkey Vulture forages from the air over open areas either wet or dry where it locates carrion by sight and smell. Various nesting habitats include bottomland hardwood forests, thickets, and rocky cliffs. Extensive areas of unbroken forest are seldom used for breeding or foraging. Turkey Vultures prefer isolated nesting locations where human intrusion is rare. Nest sites are dark recesses in caves, rock and brush piles, hollow logs and stumps, vacated hawk nests, or abandoned barns and outbuildings. The birds also nest on the ground in dense thickets, at least in some parts of the range.

The bird's acceptance of abandoned buildings for nest sites may have been an important factor in its expansion throughout the state. This shift may have occurred as a result of logging practices leading to the depletion of large, hard-rotted trees.

Habitat: Breeding: Various habitats, including wet, dry, open and wooded. Wooded habitat is dominated by deciduous or mixed trees.

Special Habitat Requirements: Clearings such as fields and roads in which carrion can be easily sighted.

Habitat: Widespread over open country; woods, deserts, foothills. Most common over open or semi-open country, especially within a few miles of rocky or wooded areas providing secure nesting sites. Generally avoids densely forested regions.

Diet: Mostly carrion. Feeds mainly on dead animals, preferring those recently dead (that is, relatively fresh carrion). Occasionally feeds on decaying vegetable matter, live insects, or live fish in drying-up ponds.

Nest: Sites are in sheltered areas such as inside hollow trees or logs, in crevices in cliffs, under rocks, in caves, inside dense thickets, or in old buildings. Little or no nest built; eggs laid on debris or on flat bottom of nest site.