Saturday, January 08, 2011

Turkey Vultures in Flight





One nice afternoon in Citrus Park I looked out and saw quite a few vultures circling around and around in the sky. I remember seeing vultures or "buzzards" in the western movies I watched as a kid. It was always a sign that something was dead. That was certainly the case that day.

Since it didn't look far away I grabbed my camera, jumped aboard my friend's golf cart and headed out to make images of vultures before they dispersed. As soon as I got there I saw several vultures on the ground so I knew there was something dead and that the large birds would not go too far.

All but one bird took off and started flying above me. I took quite a few images of the vultures as they circled just overhead. I used my 70-300 mm lens for this sequence and took several images as I quickly panned the camera trying to keep the bird both in the frame and in focus. As you can imagine I had several rejects.

I really enjoy watching vultures in flight as they soar on thermals circling and flying so high they almost disappear from sight. I was happy to be so close to a group of them and be able to get lots of photos of them in flight.

I think these are all turkey vultures because they have reddish heads. I didn't realize it until I downloaded the photos after I got back from Florida, but the birds were actually looking at me as they flew by. As well, I didn't notice that in one photo there were two birds flying in the same direction at the same angle but at different heights.

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