Vultures.
I haven’t seen any vultures around in weeks. Roadkill along my farm road is untouched. A fawn up by the corner where they used to have the horse with the star on its head, standing alone in its pastures for years, has lain beside the road for weeks. A raccoon a couple miles up the road by the Quonset-hut-with-a-gym church on the corner has been there longer. And a couple other miscellaneous squirrels remain in the roadway.
It used to be that the turkey vultures would pick things clean pretty quickly–heaven knows they reduced one of our outdoor cats to a skeleton in a day.
But, recently, black-headed vultures have moved into the area. An invasive species, black-headed vultures are known to take young livestock and other small living prey in addition to predeceased animals.
They replaced the turkey vultures in the area briefly, and although I saw them around for a short time, I haven’t seen them recently.
I don’t wonder if the black-headed vultures didn’t chase off the turkey vultures and then man-led efforts eradicated the black-headed vultures, leaving a void.
I checked with Larry Dablemont’s blog since my weekly paper subscriptions with his column have lapsed, but it doesn’t look like he posted anything about it. A quick Internet search doesn’t yield official news of any sort.
Just some personal observations and idle speculations here.
