Looking for subjects to shoot this morning, I happened to look up and saw a large bird soaring on the wind, headed in my direction. My heart raced a little as I made a quick setting adjustment on my camera, because I figured the bird with the impressive wingspan was perhaps an eagle or at least some kind of hawk.
I was a little disappointed initially when I discovered later that the bird was “only” a turkey vulture (Cathartes aura). After a while, though, the wings and feathers and the coloration started to grow on me and I realized that the turkey vulture has a beauty all its own. (In some ways I might compare it to some of the wild turkeys that some of my fellow bloggers have featured recently in their postings—suffice it to say the turkeys are not traditionally beautiful.)
I’m still working on photographing birds in flight, but it sure is a lot easier when a bird is soaring like this one, not flying at full speed.
Turkey vulture in the fall
Turkey vulture at Huntley Meadows Park
Turkey vulture soaring on the wind
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Mike Powell 