TURKEY BUZZARD 



WIDELY distributed over temperate and tropical America, the 

 Turkey Vulture — or. as it is more commonly called, Turkey 

 Buzzard — is a familiar bird in many parts ofthe South, where 

 it may be seen gravely stalking about in search of food or gracefully 

 soaring in wide circles overhead. 



As Bendire has written: ''They look their best aloft as their night is 

 exceedingly easy and graceful, while the apparent absence of all effort as 

 they sail in stately manner overhead, in ever changing circles, and with- 

 out any apparent movement of their well shaped wings, makes them 

 really attractive objects to watch; but let them once descend to the 

 ground or alight in a tree, and attractiveness ceases; now they are any- 

 thing but prepossessing, and it requires no effort to place them where 

 they properly belong — among the scavengers of the soil." 



The locality shown is Plummer's Island, in the Potomac, just above 

 Washington, looking up the river toward a stretch of rapids known as 

 Stubblefield Falls. This island is the headquarters of the Washing- 

 ton Field Naturalists' Club, an organization that includes many of our 

 best known naturalists, and is their favorite week-end resort. 



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