Unknown Bird Found On Lawn. (Plenty of Pics)

This morning, when I was coming home from a restaurant, I saw this large bird on my neighbor's lawn. It looked exactly like a vulture, and was roughly the same size as one. The head was bald, but it clearly had blue and red markings on it. The beak was dark yellow, and the feathers on its wings were brown and white at the tip.

I immediately ran inside and got a digital camera, then i snapped a few shots of it:

This is the bird picking at a piece of food on the lawn.


This is a comparison of the bird and a car in the background.


The bird suddenly sees me *gasp*!


The bird flies away and lands ontop of the roof of the house next door.
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As you can see, the bird is pretty huge.
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This is a picture of what the bird was eating. Turns out that it was a large turtle that was literally ripped apart.


The biggest birds that I've seen in New Jersey are hawks and such, but I've never seen anything like this bird before. Here is a pic of what I usually see in NJ.


I live in a suburban area with plenty of forests and rivers, and I'm pretty sure that vultures live nowhere near NorthEast America. My dad suggested that it was a peacock since there is a peacock farm a couple miles from here, but its feathers were not brightly colored. Also, it took only four strokes of its wings to go from the ground to the roof of a 2 story house. Its wingspan was also enormous. Any comments of what this thing could be?

[edit on 6-7-2006 by masqua]

By the way, sorry if the pictures were too large. ^_^"

Well, I'm no ornithologist (that is the right term, right?) but I'm pretty sure that it was a type of vulture (or buzzard as they're also known as).
It really looks similar to the vultures that I've seen down on my moms farm.
But hey, I could be wrong.

Kind of looks like a Vulture to me.. Seeing they are large birds of prey and also scavengers... Kinda fits the bill

Vulture pic

That IS a vulture or buzzard as stated above in wu kung's post !!

I live in the northeast and yes they are up here !!


Good job wu kung !!!






[edit on 6-7-2006 by Alpha Grey]

Thanx Alpha!
Just doin' my part.
(I am now officially a bird expert!:lol

there is a whole flock of these gruesome beasts behind my house as I type this their feasting on a dead dog yes they are buzzards

Must be a yankee buzzard, as it is much more refined looking, and has a nicer suit...

Our southern buzzards can scare rabbits to death, just by looking at them... yuggh.

In the desert southwest, you can often smell a buzzard.

The reason they are bald is so that, when they stick their whole head inside a rotting carcass, so that no bits of festering meat cling to the feathers that would normally be on a bird's head.

The birds often reek because of the bits of decaying carrion stuck to them. The flies are devout hangers-on.

Lovely, aren't they?

I'm from the Northeast originally.
Maryland, to be precise.

As wu Kung said, it's a vulture.
We called them Turkey Vultures.

Looks like a buzzard to me, no sing of any blue or red markings on it at all

Yeah thats a turkey vulture. We used to see them a lot when I was workin in an aqua farm. I had no clue minnesota had them.

I never knew that vultures lived in New Jersey. I always thought that they lived in the midwest.

It's a turkey vulture. They are scavenger animals. The turtle was probably hit by a car, and the turlte dragged the broken carcass out of the road (so it wouldn't become roadkill too) and eviscerated it. Turkey Vutlures are indigenous to the entire country, escecially in highyl populated areas, where roadkill is abundant. Just a vulture. That's all.

We have a family of about two dozen in our neighborhood. They're pretty creepy at first, but I've gotten used to them. It's spooky when it's real quiet and you hear them flap their huge wings.

Pretty cool, though.

The oddness for me its not the bird,,,but what he eat in the garden,,,,you useed to have lots of turtles in that place?? i think its odd he is eating a turtle!

[edit on 7-7-2006 by Umbra Sideralis]

He's a vulture. He'll eat anything dead.


Actually I suspect it was a black vulture, not a turkey vulture, based on the black head.

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Originally posted by dr_strangecraft

In the desert southwest, you can often smell a buzzard.

The reason they are bald is so that, when they stick their whole head inside a rotting carcass, so that no bits of festering meat cling to the feathers that would normally be on a bird's head.

The birds often reek because of the bits of decaying carrion stuck to them. The flies are devout hangers-on.

Lovely, aren't they?

ahhhh you're making me hungry!!

Chances are, the turtle was already expired, but the vulture carried it there to eat (tore it apart eating it). OR someone threw a dead pet out in a yard in or near yours...

Looks like a box turtle to me.

Ya,as stated before me its a turkey vulture. We have plenty of em over here. They are bigger than youd think they'd be untill you see one up close. Condors are huge though.

The California condor (Gymnogyps californianus) is North America’s largest terrestrial bird, weighing up to 22 pounds with a wingspan of nine and a half feet. It can reach altitudes of 15,000 and may fly 140 miles a day in search of the carrion on which it feeds. Read more about the new condor reintroduction site.

A lot of animal seem bigger than you would initially think though. Nice pics.

Black vultures in New Jersey

He probably heard about your budget issues and was looking for some easy pickins.