Dorie Howell Photography

Today as I was doing things around the house I noticed that we seemed to be having quite an unusual amount of large bird activity in my front yard.  Seeing and interacting with the wildlife around our house is a normal thing.  We often seen chipmunks, squirrels, deer, may kinds of birds, raccoons, turtles, foxes, snakes, etc…  but to have large birds hanging out in the front yard is a bit strange.  I didn’t think too much of it and went about my business hardly giving it a second thought.  Well, when I got back from picking up my daughter from school I noticed that not only where they in my front yard, they were on my porch.  I don’t know a lot about birds but when I see these huge black ones I do know one thing, something has died… and it isn’t something little.

My heart dropped a bit because I didn’t really want to see a dead deer by my front porch or anywhere on our property.  We have had that experience before and the county won’t come pick them up unless they are on county property.  The one who fell over on our land was not on county property so we had two choices.  1.  Pull a fully grown, decomposing, dead deer out of the woods to the street so the county can come pick it up or 2. Pay a private company or person to come take it away for you. We chose option 2 and I really did not want to deal with that again.  And in case you are wondering (because I know you are) you don’t want to leave them near your house because, let’s just say, they don’t smell like fresh roses.

Anyway… luckily today I did not find any dead rotting animal in my front yard.  Whew!

According to my handy dandy Birds app courtesy of the American Audobon Society, these two are American Black Vultures or Coragyps atratus.  They are part of the New World Vulture family and their reach extends from the southeastern United States to Central Chile and Uruguay in South America. I see them often around here and once came upon about 20 of them along a fence.  Each sitting on a post with the wings extended, sunning themselves.  It was quite a sight.

I went inside and got my camera fully thinking that they would be gone by the time I came out.  Luckily for me, when I came out I found them up on the roof hissing at each other.  I’m glad they hung around long enough so I could capture these images.  I may not like why they were in the neighborhood but I am glad they stopped by without their lunch so we could get to know them a little better.