Vultures

Someone asked me several months ago if I knew anything about the vultures that hang out around and above the downtown Cypress Creek Bridge and if I would consider writing something about them. My answer was, “No, I don’t” but I could look into it. I know I am out of my league on this one, but still I thought I would try. They are quite a sight as they start gathering in the early evening. My big concern was figuring out a way to fit this subject into Keeping Wimberley Beautiful but the only thing I could think of was that I really like to watch these graceful birds in flight as they fly low over our village.

Our quite knowledgeable bird expert, Jerry Hall, helped me understand more about these birds, though there is much more for me to learn. He clarified some real misunderstandings I have always had about them, one being that I thought they were also called “Buzzards.” Not True! (Buzzards are members of the Old World Buteo genus.) I also learned that our vultures rarely eat anything but carrion (not live bats plucked out of the sky as I had thought they did). With their keen eyes and sense of smell, we depend on them to clean up and eliminate the carcasses and smells in our fields and on our roadways . For that reason, they are a protected species, meaning that it is absolutely illegal to take, kill or possess these helpful, necessary birds. (Duh! Maybe that’s how this article fits into the category of keeping Wimberley Beautiful!) The vultures that gather in the trees along Cypress Creek in downtown Wimberley are primarily black vultures, that is the ones identifiable by their black heads, shorter body and tail. Again, I had just ignorantly referred to all of them as turkey vultures, even though I never could seem to see those red heads which give them their name because of the red heads on real turkeys.

There is obviously much more that could be written about these familiar and helpful birds circling all over Wimberley, but, for now, I hope I have cleared up a few misunderstandings, ignited additional interest in them and somehow related vultures to the subject of keeping Wimberley beautiful. Maybe Jerry Hall and others will enlighten us some more.

Written by Martha Knies