March 13, 2004 On my way over to Reelfoot from Paris Landing, I was keeping an eye on all the vultures and at Dresden, I stopped to watch three Black Vultures swooping, diving and circling, putting on a pretty good exhibit of flying finesse. I assume there were 2 males in pursuit of a female as two followed the other bird and one of the males tried to stay between the other two. Suddenly, the two trailing birds came together and locked up, tumbling down toward earth, swinging around like a do-se-do move. I had never seen Black Vultures do this before and wonder if others have witnessed this action. It certainly was not as graceful as when mated pairs of eagles do this as the vulture's tumbling and swinging was discombobulated to say the least. They did seem to clasp each others feet but the wings of both birds never sprung loose so there was more tumbling than graceful swinging as them came down. I watched them for another 15 minutes with camera at ready and did get off a shot when they locked up again but it only shows a black blob in the air. No matter how long you stay out, there is always another spectacle waiting the watcher. Good Birding!!! Jeff R. Wilson OL'COOT / TLBA Bartlett, TN =================NOTES TO SUBSCRIBER===================== The TN-Bird Net requires you to sign your messages with first and last name, city (town) and state abbreviation. ----------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------- To post to this mailing list, simply send email to: tn-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx ----------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, send email to: tn-bird-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'unsubscribe' in the Subject field. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * TN-Bird Net is owned by the Tennessee Ornithological Society Neither the society(TOS) nor its moderator(s) endorse the views or opinions expressed by the members of this discussion group. Moderator: Wallace Coffey, Bristol, TN wallace@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Visit the Tennessee Ornithological Society web site at http://www.tnbirds.org * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Topographical Maps located at http://topozone.com/find.asp * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ========================================================