I have also seen them in a duck blind and in a barn loft...eggs just sitting on the floor! They seemed to not need a lot of incubating, would ya'll agree? "There are some who can live without wild things and some who cannot." - Aldo Leopold<http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/43828.Aldo_Leopold> Carol Reese Ornamental Horticulture Specialist -Western District University of Tennessee Extension Service 605 Airways Blvd. Jackson TN 38301 731 425 4767 email jreese5@xxxxxxx<mailto:jreese5@xxxxxxx> From: tn-bird-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:tn-bird-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Scott Somershoe Sent: Friday, March 22, 2013 1:03 PM To: TN-Birds Subject: [TN-Bird] Re: Vulture nests I just wanted to share a little on vulture nesting sites. I get contacted somewhat regularly about nesting vultures and have a little firsthand experience to add. First, I found a Turkey Vulture nest on the ground under a downed tree in Louisiana about 10 yrs ago. The nest was under the upper third of the tree with decent sized branches. I found the nest by accident as the downed tree was along a path we were using in the woods for a research project (easier route than through 10 ft tall blackberry). One day I was walking over the tree and 2 young vultures hissed and went bonkers while I was trying to get over the tree. Had to reroute path through the blackberry. Vultures often nest in deer stands and duck blinds. I'm told nearly all duck blinds on Old Hickory Lake have nesting vultures, so don't go sticking your head in one of them in spring and early summer! They also will nest under abandoned houses and trailers if the crawl space access is open. As already mentioned, they do nest in old barns and old outbuildings. I received photos of a Black Vulture with eggs in a 10 ft deep sink hole in middle Tennessee a couple years ago. You could look right down on the eggs. I also saw a pair of suspicious Black Vultures on a rock wall along the edge of Percy Priest Lake in spring a couple years ago, however the nesting cave was not very high above the water level and would have flooded once the lake rose to summer pool. Black Vultures also have nested on a gravel roof under an HVAC type unit on a building at Vanderbilt in Nashville for a couple years. Needless to say they are quite opportunistic in their nesting locations! Cheers, Scott Somershoe This doesn't directly have much to do with the nest-or-no-nest discussion itself, but I've also heard of Vultures (I think they were Black Vultures) nesting in barn roofs/lofts. One family in particular I know had them nest in their barn roof, and the young became so tame that they would walk right up to people, perch on the porch, eat cat food from the deck, etc. They weren't birders, so I'm not sure how much they knew not to purposefully tame them, but the Vultures nested there more than once. For the nest discussion, I'm another one of the number that hasn't heard of them nesting up in trees before. Ryan Trenkamp Niota McMinn County State Ornithologist Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency P.O. Box 40747 Nashville, TN 37204 615-781-6653 (office) 615-781-6654 (fax)