Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Why no buzzards in the desert?

Could be. We have lots of them in Idaho in warm weather but they all migrate out for the winter.

Four legs regulated by the states, birds of prey are protected under the fed’s “migratory bird treaty act”

I'll sometimes sit still after shooting a coyote and see what happens, at about 20 minutes the Ravens are near and at 30 minutes they are on the carcass. Road kill isn't visible for long, ravens, followed by buzzards/vultures and all get chased off by the Golden Eagles. We enjoy looking for Desert Sheep and spotting Golden Eagles is a giveaway for good areas to start glassing during lambing. Scavengers and Raptors are not as threatened as are their food sources. When I was a kid any large bird sitting on a phone pole was considered as needing killing.


mike r

A few years ago I was kicking around the desert looking for a rabbit when I happened upon a dead sheep. I kicked 4 goldens off of it. Dang they're big close up! I half expected to see Gandalf on one of them.

They are all in Washington DC

Turkey buzzards are around my house all year. The blacks show up when it gets hot.

43.5 Lat 119 Long: Saw our first one this AM working a 24 mph cottontail that attempted a crossing in a 25 mph zone. Think it might have been a bit hungry, as it tolerated a very close approach before taking flight. If they will leave town and get out to the nearby ground squirrel fields, they should be able to chub up big time.

On other spring arrivals, we had a pair of Western Bluebirds giving our front driveway box a thorough look this morning.

There are PLENTY here in the Desert. For about a month straight there were a few dozen hanging out at Superstition Springs Mall in southeast Mesa. They were roosting all up and down the center median and on the roofs of businesses along Southern Avenue. I haven't been past there recently so I don't know if they are still there. I see them frequently while hunting in the desert areas.

We have both here in Southern Indiana however the black vultures are hated by the farmers/ranchers. They have become a quite a nuisance during cattle calving season, if they can they will pick at a calf's eyes, eventually killing them.

Have you noticed, nothing will touch one of their carcasses, not even other vultures/buzzards!

Is a "buzzard" a black vulture?


We had turkey vultures here on the highways even back as a little kid. However balck vultures ere rare/absent. They've made big inroads (pun) the passed 20 years though, to the point that they may be as common as the TV's.

Our osprey and bald eagle pops are WAY up too, doing better than anyone expected. Never see bald eagle on carrion.

Do Osprey eat carrion? They always seem to have a fish in talons when I see them.


wish they all ate the effin cormorants. A plague on my local ponds.

Here is the ones around Paso Robles. We always just called them buzzards.

When I'm down in the low desert here in Kalifornia, I can't remember seeing any during the fall hunting season. I do see a few hawks and surprising number of owls. At the north end of Death Valley NP, I would regularly see a few along with some Golden Eagles. That's a "mid level" desert between the high sagebrush desert and the low Ironwood Desert. Why that is, I don't know. The big difference I suspect is in the Ironwood, low desert, it's pretty tough for them to see much from the air. Most of the wildlife is found in and around the clusters of low trees in the washes. The Mojave Desert, north of DVNP, the it's a lot more open. E

[quote=Crockettnj

Our osprey and bald eagle pops are WAY up too, doing better than anyone expected. Never see bald eagle on carrion.

Do Osprey eat carrion? They always seem to have a fish in talons when I see them.


.[/quote]
During the annual raptor migrations, I routinely flush both bald and golden eagles off of road kill, and both readily eat the gut piles from feral hogs that people shoot this time of the year.

While I have never seen an osprey eat carrion, they do migrate through here. I have a photo of one perched on a power pole just west of our house, taken on the 6th of April, in 2018. There is no open water with significant populations of fish anywhere around here.

I presume that they opportunistically eat small mammals, and perhaps road kill--certainly all of the other raptors that pass through here on their annual migrations do.

Same around here. Coyotes and ravens are the "cleaners", along with some magpies. We do have buzzards in the fall.

Same problem over here.

There is plenty in Burnet county now. They were on pigs as soon as we killed them. Turkey and blacks!

They are big! Have a meeting pair of golden here. Bald Eagles are mostly to darn lazy to kill something other than the odd duck.
Have had them gather and eat the after birth during calving . Lost one calf to a eagle getting aggressive with an umbilical on a new born.
Not fond of bald eagles.
As far as buzzards/vultures in AZ we see them all the time at the house in Scottsdale and the house East of Payson.
In Scottsdale the house in on a creek with cotton woods and willow. The Buzzards sit in the trees in the morning sun to heat their wing bones then go hunting.
Come back about dark.
Here in Idaho they came early this year. Think they regret it! Snowed today!😡

In response to Blacktailer's nice shot.

If no pics, then it didn't happen. Cookie bumped into an early morning pair yesterday sort of waiting for the humidity to cook off. They were certainly not in line when looks were passed out. Only Turkey Vultures in this part of the country.