Today in Urban Wildlife – Bambi and “99% sure this is a vulture??”

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by Prince Of Petworth — June 6, 2016 at 9:45 am 7 Comments

bambi

Thanks to Steven for sending on Saturday “in Fort Totten park.”

vulture

Thanks to Jay for sending the shot above from P St. NW between 15th and 16th this morning:

“i don’t know a lot about birds but i’m 99% sure this is a vulture?? it was very unafraid of people and cars”

wdc

It would be very hard for me not to mess with Bambi if I found him like that. Even knowing that he’s just fine and mama will be back shortly.
Probably a juvenile or a female vulture (aka buzzard). The males have red heads, I think. Did you get close enough to smell it? They STINK.
Pixie

Yup, that’s a black vulture. Probably looking for some roadkill to eat.
- kgw
  
  Yep, I saw it on 13th Street, between S & T, eating some road kill. It wasn’t moving for any cars. You will need to drive around it.
  - dd
    
    Plenty of squashed rats to find around there! The other morning I saw three on Corcoran alone!
    - wdc
      
      Vultures: part of nature’s sanitation crew
RJS

It’s almost certainly an immature turkey vulture. Both male and female adult turkey vultures have pink heads. It’s easy to tell black and turkey vultures apart when they’re flying (bvs have a short, square tail, tvs have a longer, fan shaped tail, and bvs are much lighter on the underside of their wings), and of course in the winter there are no juveniles, so grey head=bv, pink head=tv, but the giveaway in this pick is the neck. A black vultures black feathers would extend further up the neck towards the head. Turkey Vultures have bare skin further down the neck. That being said, it’s a juvenile, and the young of these two species are hard to tell apart. Just by the numbers, though, turkey vultures are WAY more common, so…
- lmfb
  
  You can also tell if it’s a vulture if it has a liverpool accent.

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