Birding

On Seeing a Turkey Vulture from My Balcony

March 30, 2011 by Corey 10 Comments

It was Saturday afternoon.  I was chatting on the phone about blog stuff with Mike, as we tend to do, when he heard what must have been a string of incomprehensible babble before the line went dead.  What had happened?

I had spotted a Turkey Vulture!  Well, I had looked out the sliding glass door that leads to my balcony and spotted a large bird that seemed to have the flight pattern of a Turkey Vulture but I needed to drop the darned phone and grab the binoculars that live near the door for exactly this purpose.  Bins grabbed, up to my eyes, and, darkness?  Lens caps!  Aah, here we go, there’s the bird, TURKEY VULTURE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

the worst picture of a Turkey Vulture you will ever see on this blog

What’s the big deal about just another Turkey Vulture?  I had, up until that moment, never seen a Turkey Vulture in Queens.  Which, considering that I had seen 276 species in Queens without seeing a Turkey Vulture, is just absurd.  Species number 277 in my home county, finally, and only 23 more to make it to the elusive 300 mark.  I wonder what will be bird number 300?

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Written by Corey
Corey is a New Yorker who lived most of his life in upstate New York but has lived in Queens since 2008. He's only been birding since 2005 but has garnered a respectable life list by birding whenever he wasn't working as a union representative or spending time with his family. He lives in Forest Hills with Daisy and Desmond Shearwater. His bird photographs have appeared on the Today Show, in Birding, Living Bird Magazine, Bird Watcher's Digest, and many other fine publications. He is also the author of the American Birding Association Field Guide to the Birds of New York.