BUZZARDS’ SMELL: Back in August we wrote about a bevy of buzzards hanging out on a barn along Minard Run Road, apparently waiting for a meal of roadkill to turn up.
Then, a few weeks after that, a reader from Ashtabula, Ohio, passed along some information about buzzard behavior, including their propensity to gather in large groups, and to take turns dining on carrion, rather than fighting between themselves for their share.
We added an observation from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology that said buzzards — also known as turkey vultures — have an excellent sense of smell, allowing them to locate dead creatures from high in the air, even through the tree canopy.
The Turkey Vulture Society, a non-profit organization that has among its goals the scientific study of the habits of turkey vultures and to inform the public of the valuable and essential services of buzzards, concurs with that assessment.
But on Friday, Fred Charlton dropped in to tell us about a Beaver County bird expert who thinks those sources are all wet when it comes to buzzards’ sense of smell.
“I don’t think they could live with themselves if they could smell,” joked Earl Schriver of Economy Borough, noting buzzards’ habit of urinating on their legs to cool themselves off and eating all manner of rotting dead stuff.
While Schriver considers himself an amateur when it comes to scientific knowledge of birds — he’s a retired electrical engineer — he cites decades of watching birds in the wild and years of volunteering with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in banding programs, mostly on goshawks and owls.
Turkey vultures, he contends, have very small olfactory bulbs in their brains, like most other birds. He believes the vultures are led to carrion by blowflies that gather on rotting meat or by their sense of sight.
“I have very seldom seen a buzzard feeding on anything in the woods,” he said. Usually, they can be found in the open, dining on roadkill or other dead animals in open fields.
The experts, he says, “read each other’s books and then write their own,” perpetuating misinformation.
We’re not in a position to say who’s right or wrong, but we’re thankful for all the information we’ve received about turkey vultures.
It has been instructive, if not appetizing.
