A landfill maybe? Otherwise my first guess would be a dead cow somewhere.
No landfill close. Some livestock near, but those were pretty high up. They were still high up when they went out of sight, at least a couple of miles from me. miles
Turkey vulture are the ones with long tails, red heads and they hold their wings in a “V”. They are super-lightweight solitary lower altitude foragers, and they use their sense of smell to find hidden carrion, originally in forested areas.
Black Vutures have short tails, black heads and white patches on the wings when you can see ‘em. Down low they look heavy and clumsy, that’s because they are designed to cruise effortlessly on thermals at 5,000ft, where they can cruise effortlessly at around 45mph all day long.
Turkey vultures may congregate at roadkills and roosts but forage by themselves. Black vultures live in stable, long-term packs consisting of parents, siblings and offspring. Up high you may see just the one, but they can see each other up high from a long way off.
When one black vulture finds food it somehow communicates that to it’s spread-out pack as it descends so the whole pack rapidly converges on the spot. Black vultures also watch turkey vultures and the pack steals their carrion.
The really surprising thing is that back vultures who located a food source during the day will communicate that fact to the pack gathered at the roosting site at the end of the day and then lead the group to that location the following morning.
