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Life off the grid in the SW Texas desert. An experiment in sustainable living. NUMBERS AT THE END OF EACH BLOG POST: temp at 8PM,high temp,low temp,rainfall,wind conditions(CalmBreezyWindyGusty). YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/c/TheFieldLab Daily live streams at https://www.youtube.com/thefieldlab/live
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15 comments:
Been trying to get some turkey vultures on camera for a couple of days now. They finally cooperated this morning - seems they just couldn't resist some old bacon and steak from the fridge. Took them over an hour to show up and they finished just before my camera battery died. The turkey vulture is a scavenger and feeds almost exclusively on carrion. It finds its food using its keen eyes and sense of smell, flying low enough to detect the gases produced by the beginnings of the process of decay in dead animals - avoiding carcasses that have reached the point of putrefaction. News Theme by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/...) Artist: http://incompetech.com/
Excellent video. Glad the crow got his share.
When I worked in the Bahamas we called these guys the Bahamian Air Force. Thought you might find this interesting:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-4432416/Destinations-taken-animals.html
Mmmmmmmm... Bacon....Everybody loves Bacon!!
Garbage day! I like the sound effects of their feet on the rocks. Good pictures. My Lab got a snake in the yard today.
I was just having fun and laughing at the San Antonio, Texas, police dancing the Salsa on UTube.
Well, I went back to the San Antonio, Texas, Police Officers in The New Running Man Challenge - Salsa dancing on utube with the Michael Jackson impersonator. I think they are the best in the U.S. of police running man challengers. Guess what was there on utube-John's turkey breakfast video. The Columbia police are thin and fast salsa dancers. Then there was another police south of the border dance in Spanish. They were getting down and dirty. But then in Spanish they said it was done by professional dancers to benefit the police. They want people to sign up to be police officers.
I went to big Alcoholics Anonymous dances in San Antonio and those people got down so down and dirty that the next dance they stationed a police officer there and it was dull to the max. But then during one dance I was in back at a meeting and a police officer burst in the room. I thought that was bad. Those officers were at the dance looking under the tables, running through the place and all over the place. They were making arrests in the parking lot and found drugs stashed in the ceilings.
Well all the Running Man Challenges of the Police Officers all across the U.S. on U Tube are good, really good.
The Crows are sure big. Maybe Ravens?
You be the judge... http://www.audubon.org/news/how-tell-raven-crow
Awesome video, John. I'm envious.
Love watching their behavior towards the "carcass", each other, and the ravens. I've studied birds a long time, especially soaring birds, birds of prey, and Corvids and seeing this vid this morning brings back a bunch of memories.
I remember being fifteen, sitting on a flat stone bench outside the courthouse in Homerville, Georgia in the middle of the night, watching Turkey Vultures pick at something down a side street. I was told the vultures are protected there because of the service they provide getting rid of carrion, thereby helping prevent the spread of disease. No idea if that was, or is still, true, though they are protected by the Migratory Bird Act.
In my early twenties I once put a dead groundhog about 15yds into a field up on a ridge in Kentucky, then hid in the woods and waited with my camera for the Turkey Vultures. I'd spotted some on the horizon and with their keen eyesight they eventually came circling overhead. They wouldn't come all the way down, detecting my slightest movement in the woods, I suppose.
I eventually dragged the groundhog into the woods and went out and laid down in the field myself, sort of fetal position, camera pointed up, and waited. Again, they soared over from the horizon and circled overhead, coming in a lot closer but not landing. I'm sure the smell of fresh death was wafting up from me, after pulling that groundhog around. I got a nice image or two of a vulture circling in, but tiny in the overall frame, not having the lenses then that I do now.
As for ravens and crows, I bet those are ravens. Great book about ravens, their behavior and feeding habits is Ravens In Winter, by sociobiologist Bernd Heinrich (who also wrote wonderfully about bumblebees in Bumblebee Economics). Another good book on Corvids in general is Bird Brains, the Intelligence of Crows, Ravens, Magpies and Jays, by Candace Savage.
I think these videos, especially of the fauna and flora, are among the coolest experiments you do at TFL.
Ravens In Winter
https://www.amazon.com/Ravens-Winter-Bernd-Heinrich/dp/0679732365/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1493128108&sr=8-2&keywords=ravens+in+winter
Bird Brains
https://www.amazon.com/Bird-Brains-Intelligence-Ravens-Magpies/dp/0871569566/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1493128475&sr=8-1&keywords=bird+brains
That is a raven. The "Roman Nose" profile is an easier field mark than the wedge-shaped tail, IMO. Great, great video of nature's recyclers!
Margery oh Margery!😊
Ravens for sure!
When I was young (1985 or so) some friends and I rented a house. One day there was a young raven on the ground out back, he had left the nest to soon and mom and dad where raising hell. But not being able to fly he was stuck. We decided to save him (lots of cats in the area), we grabbed him and took him? Her? inside while being cursed and dive bombed.
We fed it with a big syringe for basting turkeys. Not having any idea what to feed we decided baby food as it was mushed up and worked well in the feeder. We named him RONNY RAVEN, after a popular politician.
Soon enough we learned what a baby raven yelling for food sounded like. He would start at sunup and quit when it was almost dark. A small jar of food a day then 2, then 3, then we put him on more solid grub. Fed with a small spoon. He liked liver pate and turkey burger best. He never ate vegetables except when it was in his baby food.
Mid-July or so he could fly and by that time Mom and Dad had given up hanging around. We decided to let him go as he was ripping up anything he could move. He did not leave, he would come back in the evening for bbq and snacks and to sleep on the mantle in the living room at night.
By summer's end he was coming back with a few friends. They were not tame like he was and did not join in on the bbq unless it was thrown away from us. No hand feeding.
On real slick thing was he could recognize our cars and if he was out patrolling his road as we called it and saw one of us coming he would fly along overhead. One of the guys had a convertible and he would land in the back and catch a ride home. He really loved that car, he would go out and sit in it waiting for a ride.
One day him and his gang showed up and had an early dinner. They all left and we never saw him again.
some times one of us would see a raven flying along his road, but it would never follow us home so probably not Ronny.
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