February 18, 2025 - delcoculturevultures.com

2025 trout stocking by the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission has begun

From a Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission news release issued today, February 18, 2025:

Posted 2-18-25

Approximately 8,400 pheasants are scheduled to be released by the Pennsylvania Game Commission over a two-day period, February 12, 2025 and February 13, 2025

… as was announced in a news release issued by the Pennsylvania Game Commission on February 6, 2025.

From that news release:

Posted 2-11-25

Congratulations to the 18 graduates of the 36th Class of the Pennsylvania Game Commission’s Ross Leffler School of Conservation

… They graduated on February 1, 2025 and they’re now working as Pennsylvania State Game Wardens.

From a news release issued by the Pennsylvania Game Commission on February 5, 2025:

Posted 2-7-25

Public access at the Middle Creek Wildlife Management Area will be restricted beginning February 4, 2025, as a result of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) affecting many areas of Pennsylvania

The following news release was issued by the Pennsylvania Game Commission today, February 3, 2025:

Posted 2-3-25

CWD detected in two deer (one wild, one farmed) in Luzerne County, PA in an area that is 40 miles away from where CWD had been detected in wild deer

… as reported in this just-issued news release from the Pennsylvania Game Commission:

Posted 1-31-25

An update on Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) in Pennsylvania was provided by Dr. Andrew DiSalvo, the Pennsylvania Game Commission’s wildlife veterinarian, at the Pennsylvania Board of Game Commissioners meeting that took place on January 24, 2025

… You’ll find that update in this video:

From a Pennsylvania Game Commission news release that was issued on January 25, 2025:

Posted 1-29-25

Some of the best bird photos

… that birders contributed to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s Macaulay Library archive in 2024 are accessible for you to view online.

Enjoy: https://www.allaboutbirds.org/news/macaulay-librarys-best-bird-photos-2024/.

Posted 1-13-25

At the right time and right place

… a gentle encounter with an element of winter can be serendipitous.

On the first evening of winter 2025, this poem by Robert Frost reminds us of this: Dust of Snow by Robert Frost | Poetry Foundation.

Similar (and surprising) beneficial encounters await many of us this season.

Enjoy winter 2025!

Posted 1-1-25

Attention boaters: the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission (PFBC) has announced the availability of a new online boating safety education course

… Details about this course were revealed in a press release that was issued by the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission (PFBC).

From that press release:

Posted 12-8-24

It wasn’t you, nor was it me

… who made this tree:

Photo by Steven Brodsky

“Trees,” by Joyce Kilmer: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/12744/trees

The tree was photographed yesterday.

The Joyce Kilmer poem was published in August 1915.

Posted 3-25-24, Reposted and Revised 11-21-24

In a proper season

… appeared this frog (and the shadow it cast upon a lotus leaf):

Photo by Steven Brodsky

Ecclesiastes 3 KJV (biblehub.com)

Posted 4-25-24, Reposted and Revised 8-14-24

Exquisite is the monarch butterfly chrysalis stage

… as pictured here:

Photo by Steven Brodsky

I can’t say that I find the adult stage of the monarch butterfly to be more exquisite than the monarch chrysalis stage.

Which stage is more exquisite?

Not an easy question (for me) to answer.

It’s easier to simply enjoy seeing these two life stages of the monarch butterfly in the great outdoors!

Posted 8-7-24

Coming into the peace of some wild things

… with this photo and “The Peace of Wild Things”:

Photo by Steven Brodsky

Posted 7-9-24

‘Nature rarer uses yellow’

… wrote Emily Dickinson: https://www.online-literature.com/dickinson/poems-series-2/106/.

Thought of the poem today when this early spring spattering of translucent yellow came into view trailside in a National Park:

Photo by Steven Brodsky

Some of this column’s readers will recall the Emily Dickinson poem the next time that they take notice of nature’s yellow in the great outdoors.

Posted 3-24-24

A tarantula species was named after Johnny Cash 8 years ago, on February 5, 2016

… The species is found near Folsom State Prison, the venue where Johnny Cash’s first live album, Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison, was recorded on January 13, 1968. The album was released on May 6, 1968.

Folsom State Prison is located in Folsom, California.

The tarantula species is named Aphonopelma johnnycashi: http://www.sci-news.com/biology/aphonopelma-johnnycashi-new-tarantula-species-johnny-cash-03615.html.

Posted 2-5-24

Most people can relate

… to the kind of death that was experienced by the character in Seamus Heaney’s poem “Death of a Naturalist.”

Posted 7-12-22

A Conversation With Katie Fallon, Author of ‘Vulture: The Private Life of an Unloved Bird’

Katie Fallon is a co-founder of the Avian Conservation Center of Appalachia. She’s worked with many species of raptors and other kinds of birds. Katie’s books include Cerulean Blues (2011) and the recently released Vulture: The Private Life of an Unloved Bird. Her essays have appeared in a number of literary journals. She has a lifelong love of nature. I’ve heard that the first word she ever spoke was “bird.”

Your new book gives vultures, particularly turkey vultures, the positive attention these non-predator raptors deserve. What brought about your interest in these maligned birds?

I’ve been fascinated by vultures for at least fifteen years. There was a roost near where I lived in West Virginia; every day I’d drive by this big, old dead tree with ten or so turkey vultures hunched in it. They became a familiar sight, and I looked forward to seeing them. Vultures are big and kind of dramatic, and in flight, there’s nothing more beautiful. In addition, they’re the ultimate recyclers—they turn death into life.

Many people in the U.S. have an aversion to vultures. Speak about this.

I think vultures remind people of their own mortality. It can be a little creepy to think about a large, dark bird waiting to consume your body when you die. In general, I don’t think people in the US are comfortable with thinking of our bodies as food. Vultures remind us that life will continue after we die, and that some life will continue because we die. They remind us of our animal bodies. Which can be unnerving!

In the absence of vultures, we’d have major health issues to contend with. Tell us why.

Vultures clean up our ecosystems by removing animal carcasses that could potentially contaminate soil and water. They can eat animals that have died of anthrax and botulism. In the absence of vultures, mammalian scavengers could increase in number, and many mammalian scavengers such as raccoons, skunks, feral dogs and cats can spread rabies; vultures do not. Several vulture species in India have suffered catastrophic population crashes in the last twenty years, and public health has suffered. India leads the world in human rabies cases, and the number of cases has increased as the number of feral dogs increased in the absence of vultures.

People get close to vultures by attending your presentations that feature non-releasable birds. How are these birds acquired? How are they trained?

The nonprofit I co-founded, the Avian Conservation Center of Appalachia, keeps eight non-releasable raptors for educational purposes (you need permits from the US Fish & Wildlife Service to do this, of course – the birds aren’t pets or personal property). All of our birds were injured wild birds that cannot return to the wild. We have three vultures. Lew the turkey vulture was hit by a car and suffered an injury to his shoulder that prevents flight. His “girlfriend,” Boris, was shot in the wing, and by the time she reached us the bone had already healed incorrectly. Our black vulture is Maverick, and he was hit by a car, which resulted in a shoulder injury that prevents adequate flight.

Our birds are all trained using positive reinforcement. We avoid negative reinforcement and punishment, and we try to empower the birds to have some control over their environments. We condition behaviors by offering food rewards when the birds perform the behaviors. Vultures (especially our black vulture!) learn quickly, and they are a lot of fun to work with.

What myths and misunderstandings about vultures do these presentations help to dispel?

People are surprised at how clean and charismatic the vultures are – and how beautiful they are up close, despite their featherless heads.

What vulture behaviors do people find to be most interesting?

People often ask if vultures throw up on us; our education vultures usually don’t (unless they get scared). Vultures also expel liquid waste on their legs and feet, probably to clean them as well as to keep cool. This often fascinates people as well.

Which species of vulture are found in Pennsylvania and neighboring states?

We have turkey vultures and black vultures. During the last Ice Age we may have had California condors, too, and possibly some other now-extinct vultures.

What has been learned about migration of these species?

Hawk Mountain has taken the lead on turkey vulture migration research. Dr. Keith Bildstein and his team have placed transmitters and wing tags on turkey vultures all over the Americas. They’ve learned that our eastern turkey vultures are partial migrants—some spend the winters in Florida, some on the New Jersey shore, some in Virginia, and in many places in between. Many western turkey vultures are complete migrants, leaving their breeding ranges in Canada and heading all the way to South America. And still others in the American southwest migrate into Central America and return. It’s fascinating how the different subspecies have different migratory strategies. Dr. Bildstein and his colleagues have ongoing research projects about turkey vulture migration, and are discovering more all the time.

Vultures have spectacular flying ability. What makes this possible?

Turkey vultures are very light – they have almost the same wingspan as a bald eagle but weigh less than half what an eagle weighs. Their wings are long and broad, and are made for soaring.

How high can they fly?

The Ruppell’s vulture holds the record for the highest-flying bird. Unfortunately for that individual, it was hit and killed by a jet flying over Africa at 37,000 feet.

Vulture: The Private Life of an Unloved Bird informs readers about lead toxicity in vultures. What is the extent of the problem? How do vultures ingest lead?

Vultures (and eagles, hawks, crows, ravens, and owls) can ingest small pieces of spent lead ammunition in animal carcasses or “gut piles” left by hunters. When someone shoots a white-tailed deer, for example, the deer is usually field-dressed, and many of the organs are left. This can be a delight for vultures and other scavengers! In ecosystems, scavengers often follow the big predators to clean up the leftovers; here, the same thing is happening—a human is the big predator, a gut pile is the leftover, and a vulture or eagle is the scavenger. However, if small lead fragments are still in the gut piles, avian scavengers can inadvertently ingest the lead and become sick. Lead toxicity from spent ammunition is the biggest obstacle in the way of California condor recovery.

The Avian Conservation Center of Appalachia provides rehabilitation for injured birds. What kind of care do vultures receive?

We’ve treated vultures with a wide variety of injuries and ailments—broken bones, head trauma, lead toxicity, soft tissue injuries. Every bird we admit receives an immediate comprehensive examination by an avian veterinarian, and is then treated as necessary with antibiotics, antifungals, anti-inflammatories, fluid therapy, or chelation therapy. They also receive orthopedic surgery if necessary. We do our best to get the birds back out in the wild if possible.

It must be very joyful to enable an injured bird to regain flight ability. Please tell us about a memorable release.

Two and a half years ago we released a female turkey vulture that had been shot with a shotgun—she had three pellets embedded in soft tissue. We had to leave the pellets in her body because removing them would cause damage. Once she was nursed back to health, we released her wearing a transmitter to track her movements. We learned that she travels to northern Georgia in the winters and comes back to West Virginia in the breeding season. We are thrilled that this vulture was able to return to the wild—and thrive!

Vulture watching is growing in popularity. Turkey vultures are very widespread. Where are some of the best places and times to observe them?

In many parts of the southeastern United States, you can see turkey vultures any day of the year in a variety of habitats. In the winter, vultures can be observed roosting together in and near many cities: in Virginia, check out Leesburg, Staunton, Radford, Pulaski, and Charlottesville; in West Virginia, many vultures can be observed migrating in the fall over Hanging Rock Tower in Monroe County and over Harper’s Ferry in the eastern panhandle. During the summer and fall, the overlook at Cooper’s Rock State Forest near Morgantown, WV, is a sure place to see turkey vultures. Hawk Mountain in Pennsylvania, of course, is an excellent place to watch turkey vultures and birds of prey during migration, especially in September and October.

What stimulated your interest in nature?

I’ve always been an outdoors person. I grew up in northeastern Pennsylvania, and I had horses as a kid. I spent a great deal of time with my horses, trail riding and competing, and when I got a bit older I often went hiking and camping with friends and family. One of my favorite childhood hiking spots was Ricketts Glen State Park—it’s filled with hemlock trees and many gorgeous waterfalls. It’s definitely worth checking out if you visit northeastern PA.

Was “bird” your first word?

Yes! My parents had bird feeders in their yard when I was a baby (well, they still do) and my mother says she used to hold me in front of the window to show me the birds at the feeder. One day, she said, “Look at the birds! Look at the birds outside.” And I nodded and said, “Bird.” I haven’t stopped talking about them since.

Posted 4-6-17, Reposted 10-29-19

2025 trout stocking by the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission has begun

From a Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission news release issued today, February 18, 2025:

Posted 2-18-25

Approximately 8,400 pheasants are scheduled to be released by the Pennsylvania Game Commission over a two-day period, February 12, 2025 and February 13, 2025

… as was announced in a news release issued by the Pennsylvania Game Commission on February 6, 2025.

From that news release:

Posted 2-11-25

Congratulations to the 18 graduates of the 36th Class of the Pennsylvania Game Commission’s Ross Leffler School of Conservation

… They graduated on February 1, 2025 and they’re now working as Pennsylvania State Game Wardens.

From a news release issued by the Pennsylvania Game Commission on February 5, 2025:

Posted 2-7-25

Public access at the Middle Creek Wildlife Management Area will be restricted beginning February 4, 2025, as a result of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) affecting many areas of Pennsylvania

The following news release was issued by the Pennsylvania Game Commission today, February 3, 2025:

Posted 2-3-25

CWD detected in two deer (one wild, one farmed) in Luzerne County, PA in an area that is 40 miles away from where CWD had been detected in wild deer

… as reported in this just-issued news release from the Pennsylvania Game Commission: