link follows text - thinking of RROKI's founder Eileen Wicker when reading this
great article...
Wait, turkey vultures love pumpkins? Why these birds of prey carve up pumpkins
each fall
Maggie MenderskiLouisville Courier Journal
Hunched over, nibbling quickly, Kachina worked through a slice of pumpkin five
times the size of his head.
This was a treat, but not in the same way that people power through pie
forkful-by-forkful until nothing is left but flakes of crusts.
The pumpkin wasn't about nourishment or even satisfying a seasonal craving. To
rescued turkey vultures, that gleaming gourd was enrichment.
Admittedly, this is a stretch as deep as Kachina had bent his neck, but I'd
even call this "pumpkin therapy."
I’m not the expert, though. Tiffany Dicks is.
Dicks, the operations manager at Raptor Rehabilitation of Kentucky, welcomed me
to this haven for birds of prey two weeks before Halloween. We’ve hit that
point where pumpkins rest on porches, fill bins at grocery stores and appear on
menus. Autumn is here, and so is one of its favorite symbols and flavors. I
love this time of year.
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Imagine my surprise when I learned on Instagram that turkey vultures do, too.
One post from Raptor Rehabilitation of Kentucky showed Kachina eying a pumpkin
with the same yearning a dog feels toward a ball. In another, he charged at it
with the enthusiasm of a football fan rushing the field.
Pure emotion and tension were evident, so I emailed the center eager to learn
why.
Dicks wrote back explaining the turkey vultures enjoy “shredding” the pumpkins.
I blinked at my screen.
Shredding? Like carving? Do turkey vultures carve pumpkins in their own way for
Halloween?
Surely, no.
But we live in a world where the pumpkin fad has gone beyond muffins and latte
drinks and stretched all the way to hamburgers and after-shave. I even saw one
internet advertisement for autumn-themed kitty litter. Like pumpkin vines
overtaking a garden, these gourds have infiltrated so many aspects of life and
commercialism.
Who would have thought they play a role in raptor rehabilitation too?
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Kachina is an educational bird, who arrived at the center 25 years ago after a
car hit him and fractured his wing. He's unable to fly, so while the center
aims to send injured birds back into the wild once they heal, Kachina, instead,
serves as an ambassador for his species.
He shares his large outdoor pen with a wild juvenile turkey vulture, who was
"bird-napped" by a human as a chick. Now Kachina acts as a foster parent with
the hope this young bird will learn proper vulture behaviors and skills from
him. Then, eventually, it can be released into the wild.
I snickered, imagining this bird showing a whole wild flock how to shred or
carve pumpkins.
Vegetables and fruits only make up a tiny portion of turkey vultures’ diets,
Dicks explained. Kachina usually gets 100 grams of rat (ick) a day.
Occasionally he eats quail. Sometimes LG&E donates a "fried squirrel" to the
cause.
Overall pumpkins, cabbage, strawberries and watermelon are less of a delicacy
to the turkey vultures and more of a pastime. Vultures are extremely
intelligent, and because they don’t have overall survival to keep them
preoccupied while they're at the center, they need man-made stimulation. The
volunteers fill their water tubs with rainbow plastic ball-pit-style balls, so
the birds can bat them around. Dicks’s husband even builds them wooden puzzles
with blocks that move to reveal pieces of food.
He spends hours making them, and sometimes, Kachina solves them in minutes.
"They have all kinds of toys, and they’re extremely intelligent, more so than
other birds," Dicks explained. "They have to keep their minds active."
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Kentucky's oldest ghost?
The pumpkins are just another part of that.
"One of their main behaviors is to shred things, and so we give them all kinds
of stuff that they can just sit and shred," she told me. "It’s a thing to do,
it keeps them active."
"Almost like knitting for birds," I wondered, out loud.
Precisely.
So Dicks took a small pumpkin slightly larger than a softball and sliced it in
half. Then Courier Journal photographer Matt Stone followed her into the pen
with a warning that Kachina might go after his shoelaces or the hem of his
pants. Even though he'd been around humans for years, this bird was still a
wild animal.
"They’re never going to bond with us like a cat or a dog would," Dicks told us.
"They’re not going to be domesticated, so the most we can ever expect from them
— is to tolerate us."
The vultures were nervous at first and much more preoccupied with the
shick-shick-shick-shick-shick of Stone’s camera than the pumpkin. Then Kachina
turned his bright red face and stared at the camera, either striking a dramatic
pose for this unusual moment in the spotlight or eying it for a taste.
Later, when he finally got his pointy, white beak up to the lens, we discovered
it was the latter.
Clearly distracted, Stone, joined me outside of the pen, and the vultures’
nerves seemed to ease. They curiously approached the pumpkin, and at last, I
got to see what shredding a pumpkin meant.
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Kachina nibbled excitedly, then shook his beak with pure delight and flung the
bits of pumpkin in his mouth to the side.
Nibble, nibble, shake, fling.
Then again, nibble, nibble, shake, fling.
A half-hour later, there wasn’t a jack-o-lantern face on that gourd by any
means, but the two vultures had certainly carved their way into it and
scattered small bits around the ground. Dicks assured us by the time she came
back in the morning, it would be nothing but scraps.
And as we left them to that treat, I couldn’t help but laugh at the two things
these vultures and people had in common.
Kachina loves pumpkin season just as much as so many of us do. But no one, not
even vultures, likes a camera in their face when they’re noshing on a slice of
pumpkin more than five times the size of their head.
Features columnist Maggie Menderski writes about what makes Louisville,
Southern Indiana and Kentucky unique, wonderful, and occasionally, a little
weird. Say hello at mmenderski@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx or 502-582-4053.
About Raptor Rehabilitation of Kentucky
Raptor Rehabilitation of Kentucky, P.O. Box 206186, has been rehabilitating
birds since the 1980s. The group is volunteer-based and dedicated to the
rehabilitation of sick, injured, and orphaned birds of prey. The organization
takes in between 300-350 sick, injured, and orphaned raptors every year, and
releases more than 60% of them back into the wild.
Raptor Rehabilitation of Kentucky relies on the public to bring them injured
birds that have been hit by cars, flown into windows, or gotten caught in
barbed wire fences. Though raptors are protected by state and federal laws, the
organization still cares for many that have been shot or poisoned. They also
help chicks who have been "birdnapped" by people, and lose the bird skills they
need to survive in the wild.
If you find an injured raptor call the center at 502-491-1939. To donate visit
raptorrehab.org/donate.html.
Wait, turkey vultures love pumpkins? Why these birds of prey carve up pumpkins
each fall
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Wait, turkey vultures love pumpkins? Why these birds of prey carve up pu...
The turkey vultures at Raptor Rehabilitation of Kentucky enjoy shredding
pumpkins as a past time. But it's not b...
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