Turkey Vultures :: essays research papers

Turkey VulturesVultures are large birds of prey closely associate to hawks and eagles.They are divided into New World piranhas and senior World vultures, both belongingto the order Falconiformes. The New World vultures, in the family Cathartidae,consist of seven species in five genera. Among the New World vultures includethe Cathartes aura, also known as the Turkey Vulture.Scientists say that washout vultures are shy, inoffensive birds. Someresearchers submit discovered that the bird is truly helpful to the environment.Its habit of cleaning up decaying and diseased carcasses makes it a salubriousengineer par excellence, while its keen sense of smell has been touch intoservice to find wasteful and dangerous gas leaks. And the vultures uniqueknack for conserving energy has intrigued scientists for years.Although the bomb calorimeter vulture has a large, dudlike automobile trunk and sporty redhead, it is not even distantly related to the turkey. Instead, turkey vultures-al ong with their cousins in the United States, the opaque vulture of the Southand East, and the approximately extinct California condor-belong to a group of raptorscalled New World vultures. Chromosome psychoanalysis shows that the New Worldvultures are actually more closely related to storks than to the vultures ofEurope, Asia, and Africa.Turkey vultures are remarkably successful birds. They range everywherefrom split of Canada and much of the United States to South America. At home indeserts, prairies and woodlands, they have even settled close to people in a make out of urban and suburban areas.Observed in flight, the turkey vulture appears black with the under attitudeof its wings grayish or silvery, giving the birds a two-toned appearance. They traitally hold their wings in a slight V, or dihedral, indeed aidingidentification. On rare occasions, they hold their wings flat and eagle-likewhich, if seen at a great distance, may cause the birds to resemble eagles. Inflight, the turkey vulture holds its naked head, crimson-red as adults andgrayish-black as immatures, downward in cable to eagles, which hold theirheads forward.The tail of the turkey vulture extends far beyond the face-lift edge of itswings. They typically rock or tilt from side to side while gliding or soaringon updrafts or circling overhead. Their casual wingbeats are powerful andlabored. Turkey vultures are large birds with wingspreads of about sextuplet feet.Their wings are long, moderatly wide, and have strongly slotted tips. Typically,the wings are held roughly above a horizontal plane when the bird is aloft.This forms a characteristic dihedral which is very useful in making correctfield identification. Although turkey vultures use thermals, they are more