{"id":81237,"date":"2021-03-12T05:49:28","date_gmt":"2021-03-12T12:49:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/?p=81237"},"modified":"2025-09-16T14:12:06","modified_gmt":"2025-09-16T19:12:06","slug":"signs-of-spring-first-turkey-vulture-sighting-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2021\/03\/12\/signs-of-spring-first-turkey-vulture-sighting-report\/","title":{"rendered":"Signs Of Spring – First Turkey Vulture Sighting Report"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"SpringSpring Turkey Vulture on a fence post \u2013 Nikon D500, f7.1, 1\/640, ISO 320, Nikkor 500mm VR, natural light, not baited<\/span><\/p>\n

Yesterday afternoon I received an email from the UBird Google group<\/span><\/a> with a first of the year Turkey Vulture sighting and that got me excited.<\/p>\n

I know, I know. Some people don’t get excited about Turkey Vultures. I’m not one of those people.<\/p>\n

I like photographing Turkey Vultures. I like their dark plumage, their white bills, and their bald heads. I like how they are nature’s clean up crew. I like how they thermoregulate in the sun. I like how they stick together when roosting. And I love to watch them soar on thermals. Any time, any day.<\/p>\n

I know that the next time I head out into the field I will be watching for Turkey Vultures on the wing, on the ground, on cliff faces, and ranch corrals. I can’t resist photographing these large, dark birds.<\/p>\n

I have missed them over the winter. It is great to know that the Turkey Vultures are back in northern Utah.<\/p>\n

Life is<\/em> good.<\/p>\n

Mia<\/p>\n

Click here<\/span><\/a> to view more of my Turkey Vulture photos plus facts and information about this species.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday afternoon I received an email from the UBird Google group with a first of the year Turkey Vulture sighting and that got me excited.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":156344,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,1148,1315,26],"tags":[4004,4226,2663,4322,3830,898,153,2817,4057,165,5036,5387,9968,2443,4618,4617,8917],"class_list":["post-81237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-avian","category-box-elder-county-utah","category-turkey-vultures","category-utah","tag-adult","tag-behavior","tag-birds-of-prey","tag-cathartes-aura","tag-fence","tag-fence-post","tag-raptors","tag-sage","tag-sagebrush","tag-spring","tag-sunning","tag-thermoregulating","tag-thermoregulation-posture","tag-turkey-vulture","tag-vulture","tag-vultures","tag-wooden-post"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/turkey-vulture-thermoregulating-mia-mcpherson-1854.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p11Mom-l8h","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":126457,"url":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2024\/03\/29\/turkey-vultures-are-heading-to-their-breeding-grounds\/","url_meta":{"origin":81237,"position":0},"title":"Turkey Vultures Are Heading To Their Breeding Grounds","author":"Mia McPherson","date":"March 29, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"A little birdie told me that they easily saw more than 60 turkey vultures flying over St. George two evenings ago. That birdie was my good friend April Olson.","rel":"","context":"In "Birds"","block_context":{"text":"Birds","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/category\/avian\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Adult Turkey Vulture on an old wooden fence, Box Elder County, Utah","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/turkey-vulture-old-wooden-fence-spring-mia-mcpherson-2160.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/turkey-vulture-old-wooden-fence-spring-mia-mcpherson-2160.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/turkey-vulture-old-wooden-fence-spring-mia-mcpherson-2160.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, 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County, Utah","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/turkey-vulture-flight-sagebrush-mia-mcpherson-5371.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/turkey-vulture-flight-sagebrush-mia-mcpherson-5371.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/turkey-vulture-flight-sagebrush-mia-mcpherson-5371.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/turkey-vulture-flight-sagebrush-mia-mcpherson-5371.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":68295,"url":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2020\/04\/11\/thermoregulating-turkey-vulture-close-up\/","url_meta":{"origin":81237,"position":2},"title":"Thermoregulating Turkey Vulture Close Up","author":"Mia McPherson","date":"April 11, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Mornings have still been fairly chilly here in northern Utah and the Turkey Vultures that recently arrived on spring migration have been taking advantage of the rising sun by thermoregulating to help chase off the chill.","rel":"","context":"In "Birds"","block_context":{"text":"Birds","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/category\/avian\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Turkey Vulture thermoregulating close up, Box Elder County, Utah","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/turkey-vulture-thermoregulating-close-up-right-mia-mcpherson-2262.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/turkey-vulture-thermoregulating-close-up-right-mia-mcpherson-2262.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, 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McPherson","date":"June 13, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"As a bird photographer I have found that it is easy to make any species of owl look interesting and appealing in my images but it is more of a challenge to do that with Turkey Vultures but that doesn't mean I don't try. I will always try.","rel":"","context":"In "Birds"","block_context":{"text":"Birds","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/category\/avian\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Turkey Vulture in front of a sage covered hillside, Box Elder County, Utah","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/turkey-vulture-sage-fence-post-mia-mcpherson-1411.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/turkey-vulture-sage-fence-post-mia-mcpherson-1411.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/turkey-vulture-sage-fence-post-mia-mcpherson-1411.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/turkey-vulture-sage-fence-post-mia-mcpherson-1411.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":70255,"url":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2020\/05\/26\/adult-turkey-vultures-thermoregulating\/","url_meta":{"origin":81237,"position":5},"title":"Adult Turkey Vultures Thermoregulating","author":"Mia McPherson","date":"May 26, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"In April there was a bright, sunny morning when I had several opportunities to photograph adult Turkey Vultures warming up after a chilly night by thermoregulating.","rel":"","context":"In "Birds"","block_context":{"text":"Birds","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/category\/avian\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Close up of an adult Turkey Vulture thermoregulating in Box Elder County, Box Elder County, Utah","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/turkey-vulture-thermoregulating-close-up-left-mia-mcpherson-2298.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/turkey-vulture-thermoregulating-close-up-left-mia-mcpherson-2298.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/turkey-vulture-thermoregulating-close-up-left-mia-mcpherson-2298.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/turkey-vulture-thermoregulating-close-up-left-mia-mcpherson-2298.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81237"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81237\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/156344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}