Common name: Turkey Vulture

Type: Bird

Family: Cathartidae

Range: You can find this bird in the
range of the southern most tip of South America from the region of southern Canada. It is also available in the ranges of Central America including Mexico and Costa Rica.

Size: The turkey vulture is available with the wingspan of 160 to 183 cm along with the length as 62 to 81 cm. It weighs around 0.8 to 2.3 kg.

Diet: This bird usually feeds on small mammals to large grazers and wide variety of carrion. They prefer to eat the one, which is recently died and want to avoid the carcasses those would have been reached at the point of putrefaction. These birds also prefer to feed really on the live insects, plant matter, other crops, invertebrates, pumpkin and the shoreline vegetation materials.
Average lifespan: The average lifespan of this bird is treated as 16 years and in some cases it is also lived around 30 years if there is no disturbance. There is also some research, which proved the lifespan as around 37 years in the case of living in the nature place.

Habitat: When you consider about the global occurrence of 28,000,000 km2, which is treated as the large range compared to most of the species of birds. It is normally the bird with the more abundant vulture, when you consider about the Americas. This bird is estimated to have the global population of 4,500,000 individuals in a better way and can be found in the open and semi-open areas of southern Canada to Cape Horn.

This bird has the permanent resident in the areas of the United States and South America. It is normally spread over the countries those are opened one, deserts, shrub lands, foothills and subtropical forests in a wider range and also in the grasslands, wetlands and pastures. These birds prefer to live in the place, which is nearer to the open areas in order to make nesting as the sufficient one with the help of woods available in those areas and mostly prefer to avoid forested areas.

Breeding/Reproduction: When you go through the breeding of this bird, the breeding season would probably be varied depending on the latitude in which they live. The breeding season is usually between March to August. If you consider about the courtship or dating culture of these birds, they normally gather in a place and form out the circle in order to perform the hopping and other events to enjoy. At the end of this gathering, one bird would probably follow another one in all situations including diving and flipping.
The female bird lays the egg in the nesting site, which is normally the protected space like inside a hollow tree, cliff, rock crevice, cave and the burrow and also in a thicket.

They don’t prefer to go for construction of nest for laying eggs and prefer to lay them on the bare surface. The female bird lays two to three eggs in the color of cream along with brown or lavender spots at the larger end. The incubation period is from 30 to 40 days and both parents take part in the incubation process. Since the chicks are helpless at the birth, both parents prefer to feed them by regurgitating food and give care for 10 to 11 weeks in a reliable manner. The young bird would probably be developed with wings and feathers about nine to ten weeks.

Turkey Vulture probably displays the sexual dimorphism. The sexes are normally identical one in both plumage and coloration, even though the female is slightly larger compared to male. When you consider about the feathers of this bird, it is normally available with the brownish-black body feathers and the flight feathers in the color of silver-gray that would probably be contrasting one along with the darker wing things. The head of the adult bird is normally small one in proportion to the body along with the red color with or without feathers. The beak of it is relatively ivory-colored, short and hooked one and legs and feet are colored with pink-skinned. These birds have the gray-brown irises of the eyes along with typically stained white legs in some species. The eyelashes are incomplete as single row on the upper lid and with two rows on the lower lid.

Turkey Vulture have relatively long front toes along with the base as shaped of small webs. The arrangement of toes is in the anisodactyl and classical one with large tracks. The turkey vulture is available with the feet, which are poorly adapted to grasping in the flat shape and weak one. Since the talons as relatively blunt one, they normally don’t suitable for the purpose of grasping. During the flight, the tail would probably become as slim and long one. Even though the body masses of both turkey vultures and black vulture are the same one, they normally differed in the case of flight.

They are perforate one, although the nostrils are not divided with the help of the septum. The beak could be seen from the one side. bird prefers to go for the molt in the season of winter to early spring in order to enjoy the special things. There is also the variety such as gradual molt, in which the bird lasts it with early season of autumn. The Turkey Vulture available with gray head and black beak tip are the immature one. The color changing could be done depending on the matureness to adult. The life span of turkey vulture in the case of captivity is not known.

If you go through the ranges from where you can see this turkey vulture, they are often standing on the stance as spread-winged. There are multiple functions those could be served with the help of stance including baking off bacteria, drying the wings and warming the body in a better way. They prefer to practice in the rainy nights or following the damp situations. Even though both female and male live in the cave together, they don’t pretend to go for mating except the breeding season.

When you consider about the Turkey Vulture breeding season, they normally go for breeding in March that would probably be peaked out in April to May and continue for makeover in June in the range of the southern United States. In some latitudes those are situated in the northern side, the season may be started later and extended until August. Since these birds don’t have captivity efficiency, you can see them in the forests of Costa Rica when you visit.