Turkey Vulture

 

I took a drive during lunch this past Thursday to clear my head a bit. I do that once in a while if I feel I'm spinning my wheels at work. Occasionally, I will see a bird of interest and wished I had brought my camera along. Such was the case on this Thursday afternoon, except lucky me, I happened to have my camera!

As I drove along Wilsonville Road, just east of Newberg, I noticed a couple of Turkey Vultures sitting in the field not far off the road. I don't usually stop along county roads, but this was too good to pass up.

The Vulture in the image at the top was just on the other side of a double wire, barbed fence (the blurred streak through the middle of the image is one of the wires), while the other in the image above was a bit further out.

  

It wasn't long before I realized why they were there and why they didn't fly off. As can be seen above, there was a Raccoon carcass that they were scavenging. Eventually, they grew wary of me and began pulling the carcass further off into the field.

 

This proved to be too much effort for the Vulture, so it abandoned the effort and flew off. 

However, the lure of the meal was overwhelming, and it soon returned. I decided it was time to move on as I had disturbed them enough. 

It had occurred to me in the past to plant a carcass in order to get photos like these, but ethics and logistics kept me from doing it. Just goes to show that if you are patient and prepared, opportunities will present themselves to you naturally.