Turkey Vulture (Cathartes aura, Latin for "cleansing breeze")
Well, "cleansing breeze" is just one translation. Others focus on the work of these vultures in cleansing the land of its rotting flesh.
Here above we have a display of the “horaltic pose," with a turkey vulture drying out its wings while warming in morning light above the Creek. About an hour after sunrise.
"Spread-wing postures may serve different purposes in different species. Anhingas, for example, have unusually low metabolic rates and unusually high rates of heat loss from their bodies. Whether wet or dry, they exhibit spread-wing postures mostly under conditions of bright sunlight and cool ambient temperatures, and characteristically orient themselves with their backs to the sun. Thus, it appears that Anhingas adopt a spread-wing posture primarily for thermoregulation -- to absorb solar energy to supplement their low metabolic heat production and to offset partly their inordinately high rate of heat loss due to convection and (when wet) evaporation from their plumage.
Cormorants, in contrast, apparently use spread-wing postures only for drying their wings and not for thermoregulation. Although cormorant plumage also retains water, only the outer portion of the feathers is wettable, so an insulating layer of air next to the skin is maintained when cormorants swim underwater. This difference in feather structure may explain why cormorants can spend more time foraging in the water than Anhingas, and why cormorants can inhabit cooler climes, while the Anhinga is restricted to tropical and subtropical waters.
Spread-wing postures appear to serve for both thermoregulation and drying in Turkey Vultures. These birds maintain their body temperature at a lower level at night than in the daytime. Morning wing-spreading should provide a means of absorbing solar energy and passively raising their temperature to the daytime level. Field observations indicate that this behavior is associated with the intensity of sunlight and also occurs more frequently when the birds are wet than when they are dry."
https://web.stanford.edu/group/stanfordbirds/text/essays/Spread-Wing_Postures.html
Black Vultures (Coragyps atratus)
The Latin "atratus" means "clothed in black, as if for mourning." These are seen preening on a snag above Hamilton Creek.
This early afternoon when I was covered in mosquito spray, sunscreen, sweat, dirt, and something between the itch of grass and the irritation of chigger-spit, we took to the Pond and washed off the heat of the day in spring waters. And watched as two black vultures slowly drank in the shallows of a gravel bar a hundred feet away.
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| Drummond's Wild Petunia (Ruellia drummondiana) |
The Ruellia drummondiana above was photographed by Dmel the first week of August.
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The mid-August sweetheart on the stones above appeared gray as the dried stream bed until it wet its scales in what's left of the Creek (below).
Cleansing Breeze in Sycamore Leaves
