Meet the Turkey Vulture of North America. This is a graphic wildlife post. Please stop now if you do not like seeing wildlife feeding.

While up in the Ochoco Mountains here in Oregon we came across Turkey Vultures. Rather a common thing to see here in our part of Oregon. All together there was oh half a dozen or more vultures. With that said, the bird who stayed on their meal just was not all to thrilled about leaving, and who am I to argue?

I watched and photographed this bird eating. At this time, as you can see as well, we both were not sure what the flock was eating on? You can see one of the Vultures flying away. These birds are not small birds thus I concentrated photographs one to two birds at one time.

As you can see this Vulture more then likely is not eating the meal per say, but swallowing what it can to eat where it is safer, or to take back to the nest. These Vultures are neat to watch for they are part of a family unit. Some of the family units can be quite large!

As I moved to another spot, I found out what it was the vultures were eating on. Pronghorn or as I am going to call them, Antelope run in rather large herds in the Ochoco Mountains. This Antelope died from something? We did not go to the Antelope to find out what it died of. That is not my main objective and I really did not want to run the vultures off from their meal they found.

The Vulture there looks young to me, white feathers. I had seen the same thing here at home, other turkey vultures with white feathers and from my observations the vultures with white feathers acted like fledglings to me. So, after watching that flock of vultures that showed up here at the house, and watching them from my garden I think that vulture is young……

This vulture by now knows I am where I was. The others flew off, though like I said I believe this is a young bird. More then likely a hungry bird not know humans were something to be feared. Not all humans shoot with a camera! This vulture may just not know this yet….

I like it how critters will turn their back on you. Hey if I can not see you, you can not see me mentality , or perhaps if I do not deal with the intrusion the intrusion just is not there?? Wildlife does not have a grocery store they can stop into when they are hungry. You either eat or you may not eat for a while. Isn’t nature wonderful?

I have been asked before if the Vultures, “stink”. You know, Guy was warned by one who knocked his hat off so we have been very close to these wild vultures and we never noticed a stench….. perhaps we just have as bad as a smeller as they do, I doubt that though ha

I did get up a tad bit closer for this shot. I wanted to use this as my greeting photograph however, I figure if you made it this far then nature might just be your thing. Some folks do not handle death. This Antelope died within sixish hours? Maybe three hours? I really can not tell you the temperature for I was not paying attention. It was not a hundred degrees.

When out doing my wildlife photography death is kind of something we run into. Just the way it is. This Antelope looked bloated but did not have the, “death”, smell yet. Therefor that tells me this Antelope had not been there that long. The wind could have been blowing the other way, I do not recall any wind but……. Also the Antelope was not half eaten, or even a quarter eaten. We have run into all of the above while out and about doing this photography!

The Vulture that I photographed the most on this day left the Antelope and jumped upon this stump to watch me watching it. This stump was not far away!

I figured I would take a few shots of the bird on the stump…..

Vultures clean up, that is what they do! If we sat upon this scene we may have encountered predators showing up for a meal? Maybe not? This is the choice one has to make at times like this. I thought this is the last I will show of this series from last week up in the Ochoco Mountains.

Thank you for coming by!