FreeLists / tn-bird / [TN-Bird] Lewis County: Strange vulture occurence

[Bill Pulliam <bb551@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Yesterday afternoon (05/05/07) a very odd thing happened at our place  
in western Lewis County.  I stepped out on the back porch, and  
noticed a few Turkey Vultures circling high.  As I stood there the  
flock grew to a kettle of about 2 dozen birds, and they began  
circling lower and lower.  Within  few minutes they were at and below  
treetop level, taking swoops barely above head height around the  
house, yard, and pond, passing very close to us at times.  A few  
began alighting in some of the trees in the yard.  They never seemed  
to find any food item, and a search didn't show any evidence of a  
fish kill in the pond.  After about 15 or 20 minutes of this, they  
all began heading off to the north. Two of them flew up the road in  
front of the house, making a beeline right up the center of the road  
not more than 5 feet off the ground.  Most of the vultures never  
landed on anything through all this.

I can't recall anything like this before.  They were evidently not  
coming in for an evening roost, nor were they feeding.  There were no  
Black Vultures in the mix.  One off-the-wall thought occurred to  
me...  Peggy had a crock pot outside on the back porch with her  
vegetable soup cooking, one of the major ingredients of which is  
cabbage.  The soup is banished to the back porch because I object to  
the "aroma" of boiling cabbage in the house.  Maybe the vultures  
mistook the smell of a pot of cabbage for the smell of a rotting  
carcass?

Whatever, it was a very strange experience!

Bill Pulliam
Hohenwald TN
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