In Tibet, it is common for Vajrayana Buddhists to participate in sky burials. In this customary funerary practice, the recently deceased are placed atop a mountain where the bodies, exposed to the elements, are eaten by all manner of birds and animals. It is believed that through this offering, the dead are given back to the earth, a final contribution to the land and its creatures from which we all come. Typically, the most common visitors to a sky burial are carrion birds. They swarm and feast upon the newly decomposing corpse, gaining sustenance from death. Vultures are often the most prominent, displaying their love for soft, dead things as they help reduce a corpse to nothing more than bones.
The turkey vulture, most commonly found throughout North and South America is not among the vultures most likely to participate in sky burials, however, they share the same love for the dead as their Tibetan relatives. In fact, their love for roadkill and recently departed creatures is so well known that oftentimes these birds get a bad rap. Being associated with death, it turns out, is not a trait most people find attractive. Still, turkey vultures are not to be dismissed. They are a vital part of our ecosystem, working to clean the land of potentially diseased and rotting animals.
If you’ve seen a turkey vulture, you’ve most likely spotted it flying high in the sky, riding the thermals and updrafts in unsteady circles as it searches the ground below for its next dead or dying meal. Even in flight, these birds are massive, with wingspans that can get up to nearly five feet in length. Their bodies typically create a “V”-like appearance when in the air, making them easily distinguishable from other birds of prey like hawks and eagles. Still, if you’re uncertain whether it is a turkey vulture that you’ve spotted, see if you can make out the long, finger-like feathers that fan out from the tips of their outstretched wings.
From far away, you might believe the turkey vulture’s appearance is solid black, however, if you’re lucky enough to get a glimpse of these birds up close, you’ll find that they are actually a mixture of various shades of brown. Their wing feathers are typically on the lighter side— sometimes even sporting areas of white mixed within the milk chocolatey color—while their bodies don a deeper plumage. Their heads, however, are completely bald and colored a vibrant red, giving them the appearance of the traditional turkey from whom they get their name. This baldness also adds to their unsettling nature as it looks as if they are in the same process of decomposition as the animals they help to devour.
There is no need to fear the turkey vulture, though. Rarely do they attack living creatures. Instead, they prefer to wait until their meals are already dead before they decide to feast. To locate food, they use their exquisite sense of smell to track down decaying corpses from over a mile away. Because of their atypical diet, turkey vultures have evolved to be able to withstand some of the deadlier diseases like cholera, salmonella, botulism, and anthrax that have been known to take up residence on the dead. To some, their resilience to certain diseases might seem like just another reason to be wary of their serpentine like hiss, but truthfully their iron stomachs are more of a gift than an omen, helping us rid the land of potentially fatal outbreaks of disease.
Still, it is easy to be unsettled by the presence of a flock of turkey vultures. After all, they thrive on the very absence of life. Perhaps their attraction to dead things disturbs us because we imagine ourselves in death, ripped to shreds beneath those very same talons. They are a constant reminder of our own mortality, and we dislike how they remind us that it follows us everywhere, and that it can never be escaped. Though we know logically that turkey vultures, too, must die, when we see them with their blood red balding heads and menacing talons, we can’t help but believe they are messengers from beyond. Harbingers of the dead sent to earth as a constant reminder that we are born from this earth and to this earth we shall all one day return.
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Illustration by L. Hisako Nakashima.
