A Little Friday Funny

It is not hard to guess the average age of a snowbird, those retirees who travel south for the winter months. Suffice it to say they are usually past or well past age 65.  The first few years we began our migration, we noticed lots of turkey vultures in the skies. They were constantly circling and riding the warm winds.

It didn't take long for the joke to be, the birds are just circling because they see all the old people below.

Now that was a little funny for a while but the other day as we were exploring the bird sanctuary near us, I noticed a sign I hadn't seen before explaining the importance of the turkey vultures in our eco system.

Here are a few facts I gleaned. They have no feathers on their heads apparently which keeps their heads cleaner as they stick them in the carcasses.

While other birds can't smell, vultures can smell carrion from a mile away.

Very corrosive stomach acid allows them to consume disease ridden meat with no problem and instead of Purell, they defecate on their legs to sanitize them.

More than you wanted to know, right?

The best thing I learned is that vultures cannot sense death and do not circle dying animals. So even if they are circling overhead I can rest assured they are only enjoying the ride on the wind currents. Whew!

Why Are The Vultures Circling?

Everywhere you look here in Key Largo you see vultures circling in the sky. We have been fascinated by how they can use the thermals and the winds and actually just stay in one place for a long time soaring with wings spread.

There are black vultures and turkey vultures in Florida. It's hard to tell the difference from the ground looking up as they circle in the skies. The turkey vultures are larger but again, unless you have something to compare size to it is difficult to tell.

They have great vision like the eagle or hawk and can spot food from quite a distance. The difference is that the eagle and hawk are looking for live prey. The vultures are looking for the dead and decaying.

We play at tennis quite a bit. Actually we call it "wack-a-ball" rather than tennis. No score. No pressure. Two or three bounces is okay. Several times as we play we've notice a few vultures overhead soaring and just pausing in the wind and hanging out. Is there something they are waiting on? What do they know that we don't? At our age you begin to wonder.