Don’t Tell Alfred Hitchcock—

Turkey Vultures Come A-Calling

By Dottie Evans

Imagine six huge turkey vultures soaring into your yard, landing on your fence, and then flying over to your neighbor’s house, from which vantage point they sun themselves and scan the neighborhood.

Karen Brown Bowditch has lived at Gray’s Plain Road for eight years now, but she has never seen anything like this.

“It was very eerie. I looked out my living room window around midday and saw these big, black shadows crossing the lawn. So I went outside to see what was happening. It seemed like there were turkey vultures everywhere, circling my yard and landing on my neighbor’s roof where they stayed for quite a while,” Ms Bowditch told The Bee last week.

“They have six-foot wingspans and I was wondering to myself, should I even be out here?” she said, adding she did not stay outside for long.

She watched the vultures spread their wings wide as though to dry their feathers in the sun or warm themselves. Meanwhile, her husband, Simon, was able to photograph three of them with his digital camera.

“My neighbor was just getting into his car when he looked up and saw what was on his roof. I heard him say, ‘Oh, my God!’ as he slammed the car door and drove off.”

Ms Bowditch figures the turkey vultures were attracted by the scent of carrion in the form of dead rabbit and deer parts that some coyotes had dragged into the woods nearby.

“Usually you see them soaring way up high in the sky. They are not as common up north as they are in the south,” she added.

Karen and Simon Bowditch say they have since cleaned up the coyotes’ prey leavings from the woods to discourage more turkey vultures deciding to join the first group.

They would not like to see the whole thing get out of hand. Images of a terrified Tippi Hedren boarding up her windows and stuffing pillows into her chimney in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1963 movie thriller The Birds come to mind.