Eye to eye with a black vulture


Great photo out of a group at the University of George studying carrion-eating birds.  They capture vultures — black vultures are a current project.

Close up of an eye of a black vulture. Photo by Megan Winzeler, at a University of Georgia research project.

Close up of an eye of a black vulture. Photo by Megan Winzeler, at a University of Georgia research project. Note the photographer, reflected in the bird’s eye.

This bird has the unromantic name of BLVU202.

“The last thing the old prospector would see . . .”

This entry was posted on Monday, May 26th, 2014 at 9:41 pm and is filed under Bird Watching, Conservation, Ornithology, Wildlife. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 Responses to Eye to eye with a black vulture

  1. Ed Darrell's avatar Ed Darrell says:
    May 27, 2014 at 2:17 am

    Great question.

    1. I’ve got a helluva cold, and I’m lucky I’ve gotten anything done here in the past three days. Including right now.

    2. I wasn’t watching that calendar — 107th birthday? — and when it started popping up in my feeds, I was thinking I had slept through the 27th (see #1).

    So, thanks for the tickle, and keep watching.

    By the way, Amanda Holland, my wife’s cousin who does the vulture and condor research, alerted me a couple of years ago that the condor recovery is being hampered, still, by residual DDT in the California environment. Birds of prey are particularly susceptible to the bioaccumulation effects of DDT — and the carrion eaters, too, get hammered for the same reasons.

    So vultures are not so distantly related to DDT as not to have a connection.

    Like

  2. jahigginbotham's avatar jahigginbotham says:
    May 27, 2014 at 2:00 am

    off topic, but

    google doodle today, where’s the post?

    Like

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