| [2006 April 28] In Texas Mel and I have wasted hours watching buzzards navigating updrafts. In case you didn't know, birds with wide wingspans are typically built for soaring, which works pretty much the same way flying in a glider does. These birds use the air currents to do the work for them, so to attain more altitude, where hot air is rising they'll wheel around and follow the air current upward. Sometimes you can sit there and watch them upwards of several thousand feet --until all you can see are specks in the sky. There can easily be several dozen buzzards in an updraft and I imagine there have been plenty of documented reports of many more --perhaps hundreds making use of the same updraft.
Of course, that isn't the only way you'll see buzzards making their classic circlings. You also see them wheeling above where a dead animal is. They smell the scent of blood and what-not in the air and find their ways upwind to where the scent is coming from, wheel around to make sure it's safe to land, then come down and start eating the corpse. They aren't predators, but scavengers, and like I've mentioned elsewhere scavengers are part of the reason Texas highways are so clean. | |
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[Transcript] - Norm and Dorma are sitting on top of a light pole next to a highway...
SPLAT!!!
"Gee, bet that hurt... for a cupula seconds." Norm replies, "Yeeaahhh, buddy!"
WHAMM!!!
"Yo! Say hi to oblivion for me!!" Dorma replies, "Ooooohh! (squirming...)"
SPLUDGE!!!
"Tch! Don't need a meat grinder after all!" Norm replies, "Keishka anyone?"
IMPACT!!!
"Hey, what's the biggest difference between a badger and a watermellon?"
Dorma replies, "Hmm.. a watermellon doesn't have guts?"
"Close. A badger doesn't have seeds." |
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