Vultures
This reading profile brings together 4 source-linked articles that reference vultures.
Explore Fauna’s source-checked field guides and research articles covering vultures, or search the species catalog below for individual species profiles.Source-linked reading
- Field guideHow vultures find carrionSoaring lets a vulture scan cheaply over large areas. Old World species generally find exposed food visually, whereas turkey and yellow-headed vultures can follow carrion odors through forest cover; descending birds, eagles, and other scavengers then create social information visible from afar.
- Field guideWatching raptor migrationRidges, coastlines, and rising air concentrate migrating hawks, eagles, falcons, and vultures. Learn the site's season, scan in a repeatable pattern, identify shape before plumage, and keep personal notes separate from an official count.
- Field guideHow birds flyA flying bird redirects air with a wing whose camber, angle, area, and motion continually change. The resulting aerodynamic force can be oriented upward for weight support or forward for propulsion; muscles, joints, feathers, tail, and sensory feedback tune each wingbeat.
- Field guideWhy birds have air sacsBird lungs do not inflate and collapse like mammalian lungs. Expanding air sacs shift air through branching bronchi and parabronchi; in the best-known pathway, fresh flow continues across gas-exchange tissue during both inhalation and exhalation, while the sacs themselves exchange little gas.