The most disgusting thing I saw in Austin, Texas
Image found at Animal Diversity Web
Bear with me people, I'm coming slowly back to blogging 
sOoOoOoooo ...
I am walking (either up or down) 6th Street on my way to finding hypo-allergenic food at that growing business bent into becoming the walmart of alternative foods, Whole Foods.
I'm way past Congress Avenue, maybe in the vicinity of Las Nueces, when I see this huge bird eating the rotting carcass of what smells like a dead rat. Ewwww!
First thought that pops into my mind after ewwwwwing : Wow, that looks like a turkey, but it's eating what smells like a dead rat?
Well, what do you know. Texas has a bird they call a turkey vulture.
UPDATE :
Just wanted to clarify that the bird was not disgusting. Seeing the bird eat a piece of putrescent and odoriferous carrion was the most disgusting I've ever seen.
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Birds | Native Fauna | Turkey Vulture | Vultures | Austin - Texas | Whole Foods
The bird wasnt as nasty as
Submitted by liza on 16 March 2007 - 5:46pm.
The bird wasnt as nasty as seeing the bird eating the carcass. That was totally gross.
they are everywhere here
Submitted by Lorraine on 16 March 2007 - 9:29pm.
We have tons of turkey vultures here. They do a service--eating all the road kill around these parts. This past week, I've seen lots of dead bunnies on the roads. It's so funny to think that we live less than 200 miles apart, and I see things every day that you all never see in the city. My youngest and I have been observing, when I drive her to school, how a dead deer carcass in a denuded corn field has been feeding crows for a while now. The cold has kept the carcass "on ice".
I forget that you city folks don't have wild animals.
Actually we do Lorraine
Submitted by liza on 16 March 2007 - 10:08pm.
There is actually a division of urban fauna here in NYC.
We have a falcon that comes to hunt in our grounds for squirrels. Thing #1 even took pictures --you could hear it crunching on the bones ... YUCK! Sometimes it hunts at night and you can hear the squirrels squeaking as it gets killed ... Urgh!
Last year I saw an opposum on 23rd Street. People were freaking out, worried that it would cross the street and get killed.
We even had a wolf in central park --although I didn't get to see it.
There's the geese and the seagulls and the bluebirds too. And I did see once what looked like a woodpecker, I swear!
So really, I'm not that much of a weenie. I just think that eatine a smelly carcass off the road is gross.
Of course the kids heard the story and thought it was the coolest thing they've ever heard.
Those things are all over
Submitted by pops (not verified) on 16 March 2007 - 10:51pm.
Those things are all over the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. You have to catch shuttle buses from one area to another at the KSC. Driving along those things are everywhere. Each and every one watches each and every bus go by.I kept wondering, what do they know that I don't?
Wide range
Saw them a lot in California. Look way cool flying at a distance, look nasty up close.