Vultures!

[tarkus]

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5695748.html

Randy Smith, a San Antonio-based biologist with the Texas Wildlife Services Program, said complaints about buzzards have soared.

"Ten years ago, it was a rarity, but it's pretty frequent nowadays," he said. "Usually we'll end up assisting the rancher. Nine times out of 10, we'll assist him getting a permit."

The permit allows the birds to be trapped or killed in addition to allow use of harassment to try to drive them away.

Harassment is what officials at the Halifax Health Medical Center outside Daytona Beach, Fla., have been using since early this year, apparently with some success. Metal spikes, sprinklers and a loud roof alarm are meant to discourage vultures from roosting.

It might not work forever.

"They're very smart," Smith said. "These vultures learn over time what you're doing doesn't hurt them."

That's when game officials recommend a shotgun might be more convincing.

[MrsFosforos]

Have you ever seen what a startled vulture (or buzzard) does? Their self defense strategy is to unload their guts... which would be good enough to keep me from wanting to be near one that was being shot at!!

I flushed one up on a country road one time, it was eating some kind of road kill and when I rounded a corner, it flew up directy in front of the car and puked all over the hood.

[HighVelocity]

I've seen some pretty big vultures around here. The could easily carry off a housecat or small dog. They give me the heebeegeebees.

[Greybeard]

We've got a 150' cell phone tower on the same property as our range. A few years ago I counted 44 of 'em roosting on it at dusk. And learned real early, not to linger downwind when they are up there.

[Lodge2004]

My first summer out of High School, a friend and I went to Big Bend to do some backpacking. We hiked out to Mule Ears Peaks and slept in the open on bed rolls. As the sun was coming up, I opened my eyes and was suprised to see that we were surrounded by dozens of buzzards siting in a circle and eyeing us like two slabs of beef. They quickly flew away, but it left me with a wierd feeling all day.

[nedmoore]

When I saw the title of Vultures I thought that you were going to talk about tow trucks!

[Rokyudai]

Thought it was a thread about the Brady's

[austin]

Have you ever seen what a startled vulture (or buzzard) does? Their self defense strategy is to unload their guts... which would be good enough to keep me from wanting to be near one that was being shot at!!

I flushed one up on a country road one time, it was eating some kind of road kill and when I rounded a corner, it flew up directy in front of the car and puked all over the hood.

I was driving outside of Llano and suprised about 50 of them feeding on a dead cow. My windows were down and it was a nice day until they all unloaded on me and my car. I ended up running off the road and through a fence. A local let me wash my car in his driveway by the road. I threw my clothes away.

[Tactical_Texan_CHL]

Dr Pepper just came out of my nose!!!!!!!

[The Annoyed Man]

I was driving through a residential neighborhood in Weatherford a few weeks ago with my wife, and we ran across a trio of them worrying a piece of fluff in the middle of a small neighborhood intersection. I had to honk my horn to get them to move so I could drive through. They just gave us the stink-eye and waddled out of the way until we passed, at which point they returned to that little piece of squirrel tail or whatever it was they were fussing over. Buzzards in the wild may scare easily, but in Weatherford Texas, they don't care about nuttin'. They just sit around and pick their teeth like a congressman.

[Tactical_Texan_CHL]

There's just something spooky and unsettling about them. I think I would have been GONE and forgotten the rest of the trip if this had happened to me! Lodge, you're a brave soul!

by Lodge2004 on Sat Apr 12, 2008 10:34 pm

My first summer out of High School, a friend and I went to Big Bend to do some backpacking. We hiked out to Mule Ears Peaks and slept in the open on bed rolls. As the sun was coming up, I opened my eyes and was suprised to see that we were surrounded by dozens of buzzards siting in a circle and eyeing us like two slabs of beef. They quickly flew away, but it left me with a wierd feeling all day.

[oilman]

A couple of months ago saw one descending on a line straight for my Yorkshire terrier. When the vulture spotted me walking toward the dog the vulture veered off.

A few weeks later I was sitting on a flatbed trailer talking with the guy who just installed my new septic system. One vulture came flew over to check us out just kind of hovering over us at a height of may 75 ft or so. After 30 seconds or so the septic guy yells at the vulture "we ain't dead yet" at which point the vulture went and looked for other fare!

[elwood blooz]

A few weeks later I was sitting on a flatbed trailer talking with the guy who just installed my new septic system. One vulture came flew over to check us out just kind of hovering over us at a height of may 75 ft or so.

This is how you know your break has lasted too long!

[MrsFosforos]

I was driving outside of Llano and suprised about 50 of them feeding on a dead cow. My windows were down and it was a nice day until they all unloaded on me and my car. I ended up running off the road and through a fence. A local let me wash my car in his driveway by the road. I threw my clothes away.

I would have had to clean up the barf on the inside of my car because I would have lost it!!

When I was a kid, my band director told us a story about shooting at one fly over head one time. The buzzard circled around and puked on him. That was a picture I never got out of my mind.

[jimlongley]

My grandpappy taught me, when I was a child, that as a Brigadier General he only had to obey the "military speed limit" of 55mph, just about anywhere.

A whole bunch of years ago he, with my grandmother and their two daughters (my mother and aunt) were traveling from one military base to another, and they were driving across some long flat part of some western state, and he had that V-8 Ford flat out.

Off in the distance in the road mirage, he spots a buzzard that has just taken off from a feast on some road kill and the buzzard is flapping for all it's worth trying to gain altitude flying along the road.

As they got closer my grandpappy drew the attention of his wife and daughters to the bird as they approached at a closing speed of something exceeding 120 mph (estimated from car speed and bird speed combined), but hardly had a chance to get out more than a few words before the bird and car met, and some of the bird actually passed all the way through the car.

The rest of the bird stayed in the car, all over the inside, the passengers, everywhere. They had to travel onward until they reached a place where they could obtain: showers; clothes; a doctor for the glass in my aunt's eye and the other cuts and scrratches everyone else had, and a new car.

The bird never had time to puke, was flying at just windshield height, which is hard to judge at the speed that my grandpappy was going, and toward the car. It took out the windshield, both sides of the split flat one that was on that model car, and some of it actually knocked out the back window.

My grandmother told this story to me many times, much to 'Pap's displeasure, always emphasizing the smell.