Designed by Paul Smith 2006. This website is copyrighted by law.
Material contained herewith may not be used without the prior written permission of FAUNA Paraguay.
Photographs on this web-site were taken by Paul Smith, Hemme Batjes, Regis Nossent,
Alberto Esquivel, Arne Lesterhuis, Rebecca Zarza, José Luis Cartes and Hugo del Castillo and are used with their permission.
TURKEY VULTURE Cathartes aura
He looks ugly with his naked red head, but once in the air he is a master of his craft, soaring high and tilting gently on V-shaped wings. Like other vultures he is mainly a carrion feeder, forming a valuable clean-up service in nature. The Turkey Vulture is a common species, but distinguished with difficulty from the similar Lesser Yellow-headed Vulture. If you can`t see the colour of the head note the wing pattern - Turkey has silver only on the underside of the flight feathers, LYH also shows silver on the upperside of the primaries.
FIGURE 1 - Adult perched, Estancia Cachiveo, Departamento Presidente Hayes (Arne Lesterhuis May 2007).
FIGURE 2 - Same individual wings extended dorsal view (Arne Lesterhuis May 2007).
FIGURE 3 - Adult perched, Fundación La Piedad, Departamento Presidente Hayes (José Luis Cartes June 2004).
FIGURE 4 - Adult perched, Estancia Ruoti, Departamento San Pedro (José Luis Cartes May 2003).
FIGURE 5 - Adult soaring, Naranjaty, Departamento Presidente Hayes (Alberto Esquivel July 2004).
FIGURE 6 - Adult soaring, PROCOSARA, PN San Rafael (David Gill March 2008 - ECOSARA Biodiversity Database).
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