The flight of the Turkey-Buzzard is graceful, dignified, and easy. It sails with a steady, even motion, with wings just above the horizontal position, with their tips slightly raised. They rise from the ground with a single bound, give a few flaps to their wings, and then proceed with their peculiar, soaring flight. They rise very high in the air, moving round in large circles. They are of gregarious habits, and usually associate in companies of from ten to a much larger number. They feed upon all kinds of animal food, and are accused by Audubon of sucking eggs and devouring the young of Herons and other birds. Yet in Trinidad they were observed by Mr. E. C. Taylor associating with the poultry apparently upon the most amicable terms, and, although surrounded with chickens of all sizes, they were never known to molest them. Mr. Audubon also states that they devour birds of their own species when dead. They are said to walk well on the ground and on the roofs of houses, and associate and even roost in company with the Black Vulture. Dr. Heermann, who observed them on the desert between the Colorado and Carissa Creek, where they find an ample supply of food from numerous animals that there perish from want of grass and water, states that they seemed to be on terms of amity both with the Ravens and the California Vultures, but retire on the approach of the prairie wolf. He adds that when a company of these Vultures have once commenced upon a carcass, a scene of plunder, noise, confusion, and dispute ensues, baffling all description. Each one strives, as best he may, to bolt the morsel he has seized, or to rob his neighbor whose booty is too voluminous to be despatched at once. As illustrating the peculiar flight of this species, Dr. Newberry mentions that, having occasion to shoot one for the purpose of determining its identity, the wounded bird made no motion indicating it had been struck by the shot, but sailed on with widely expanded and motionless wings as before; gradually it “began to descend in wide and regular circles, till finally, without a wing-flap, it settled as lightly as a feather on the prairie, and remained motionless.” Upon going to the bird, Dr. Newberry found it resting in the grass, the wings still widely and evenly expanded, but the head drooping and life extinct.
In the Southern States this Vulture is found equally in cities and large villages, and near the coast, as well as in the interior, in company with the Black Vulture (C. atratus), although the latter species is chiefly confined to the coast, and is rare in the interior. It is noticeable that in Guatemala and Honduras its habits are somewhat different in these respects, being only found in wild places, leaving the cities and sea-coast to the exclusive occupancy of the Black Vulture. Mr. G. C. Taylor, who observed these birds in Kingston, Jamaica, states that they were the only species seen, and that they were always to be found either on the roofs of the houses or feeding on the carrion in the streets. They made great noise with their feet as they clattered over the shingles of the roofs.
In Trinidad, where Mr. E. C. Taylor found this bird much less numerous than the atratus, it kept to the open country, and was not found in the towns. He could always readily distinguish it by its more graceful flight and its aquiline appearance. They were generally to be seen skimming over the tree-tops, as if trying how near they could go without touching. On the Orinoco, though more numerous than in Trinidad, they did not frequent the towns in the same familiar manner with the Black Vulture.
The Turkey-Buzzards, as well as the Black Vultures, are evidently aided by a very powerful sight in distinguishing their food at a great distance. They are frequently known to collect in large numbers, from great distances, around the dead bodies of animals, where none were in sight before. But it seems equally certain that they are also assisted by an only less powerful sense of smell. Mr. Hill, cited by Mr. Gosse, mentions a remarkable instance where these Vultures were attracted by a strong smell of carrion to the house of a German emigrant, lying sick of a fever, and where his neglected food had become offensive. In this instance the sense of smell, unaided by that of sight, must have guided these birds.
Mr. G. C. Taylor, while residing at Kingston, often used to puzzle the Vultures by throwing dried bird-skins stuffed with cotton out upon an adjacent roof. Few seconds would elapse before a Vulture would pounce upon them, and manifest a great disappointment in finding nothing to eat in skins of so promising an appearance. He once wrapped the carcass of a bird in a piece of paper, and threw it into the top of a thickly leaved tree near his window. There it remained for a long while, the Vultures sweeping within a few feet of it, almost brushing the leaves with their wings, their sense of smell informing them that there was something eatable close by, but their sight failing to solve the problem, owing to the enclosure of the object in an envelope.
The Turkey-Buzzard breeds on or near the ground, usually in hollow trees, stumps, or decaying logs. It generally constructs no nest, depositing the eggs with little or no preparatory pains for their shelter. Mr. Ord found them breeding as early as the month of May in the deep recesses of the solitary swamps of New Jersey. He describes the nest as formed, without any painstaking, in a truncated hollow tree, and in excavated stumps or logs, and mentions the number of eggs as from two to four. Except in regard to the number of eggs, which is probably never more than two, these observations substantially correspond with other accounts of their breeding. In Jamaica, Mr. Gosse mentions that the situations usually selected by the Turkey-Buzzard of that island for laying and hatching its eggs are hollows and ledges of rocks in secluded places or inaccessible crags and cliffs. A little dry trash, he adds, or decaying leaves, are all the apology for a nest. On the island of Galveston, where this Vulture was plentiful, Mr. Audubon several times found its nest on a level part of the salt marshes, either under the widespread branches of cactuses, or among tall grass growing beneath low bushes. Mr. T. H. Jackson found this Vulture nesting in Maryland, with fresh eggs, from April 10 to May 1.
Dr. C. Kollock, of Cheraw, S. C., informs me that in his neighborhood both this species and the Black Vulture frequent places in the interior of swamps and thick woods, generally called Buzzards’ roosts. They congregate there through the year in large numbers, and usually breed in the immediate vicinity. Mr. Audubon visited one of these roosts, near Charleston, S. C., which extended over two acres of ground, and was entirely destitute of vegetation.
Mr. Dresser, who found this species one of the most common birds of Southern Texas, gives a somewhat different account of their nesting. He found them breeding all through the country on the banks of streams where the timber afforded a secure shelter. He saw many nests on the banks of the Medina, Altacosta, and San Antonio Rivers; and these, he states, were large and bulky, composed of sticks, and generally placed at some height on a cypress or an oak near the river-bank.
Captain C. C. Abbott states (Ibis, 1861, p. 149) that in the Falkland Islands they lay their eggs, two in number, but sometimes three, under a high bank amongst bushes, or on the top of a dead balsam log, without constructing any nest. The time of their laying was the first week of November. The young birds have the bare space of the head and neck of a bluish color, as also the feet. The old birds go in pairs the whole year.
The eggs exhibit slight deviations in size, and occasionally the nature of their markings, yet for the most part preserve specific characteristics. The following are the proportions of four specimens, which will represent their usual variations: 2.81 inches by 1.94; 2.75 by 1.87; 2.94 by 1.87; 2.62 by 1.94. These were from New Jersey, South Carolina, Louisiana, and Tamaulipas (Mexico). The more common varieties have a ground of a light cream-color, marked with large confluent spots of reddish-brown or chocolate, chiefly predominating at the larger end, but also sparsely scattered over the entire egg. Intermixed with these are less frequent markings of a light purplish or lilac shade of drab. These are often so faint as only to be perceptible on a close examination. An egg taken some years since in New Jersey, by Alexander Wilson, and somewhat faded, is marked over the entire shell with confluent spots of a dark greenish-brown, with no perceptible shades of red or purple. Another variety from Cheraw, S. C., has a ground of nearly pure white, is very nearly unspotted, and is only marked with a few small dots and lines of red and indistinct purple at the larger end.