Missouri Turkey Vultures

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Welcome to the Missouri Turkey Vultures! This nest is located in the top of a barn in Marshall, Missouri. In 2023, the vultures laid egg #1 on April 23.

The vultures have migrated south for the winter. We’ll turn the cam back on when they return.

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About the Marshall Turkey Vultures

About the Turkey Vultures

The Marshall Turkey Vultures are nesting in an empty hay loft in a barn on private property near Marshall, MO. In general, vultures arrive in late March or early April and lay eggs in early May. Hatch begins about 28 days after the second egg is laid. Both parents incubate eggs and brood young.

Vultures eat primarily carrion. Although they prefer relatively fresh carrion, they are unable to tear carcasses open, which means they must wait until a carcass putrefies or is opened by mammals or larger vultures. This may be why they have been documented following bald eagles and black vultures.

Adult Turkey Vultures regurgitate food for their young, who fledge roughly sixty days after hatching. To learn more about turkey vultures in general, please follow this link to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology website.

Adults

Although vultures are classified as a member of the order  Accipitriformes, and so related to hawks, eagles, and falcons, males and female birds are similar in size and lack the strong feet and talons of most Accipitriforme birds. Turkey Vultures do not have a syrinx, so they grunt, stamp, and hiss instead of calling, singing, chattering, or otherwise making vocalizations that we associate with birds.

Nests

Turkey vultures lay eggs in dark, quiet recesses, including rock outcrops, mammal burrows, hollow logs, thickets, hollow trees, abandoned stick nests, and abandoned buildings. Nest sites must be dark and isolated from human disturbance.

Quick facts
Common name: Turkey vulture
Scientific name: Cathartes aura
Both Sexes
Length: 25.2-31.9 in (64-81 cm) | Weight: 70.5 oz (2000 g)
Wingspan: 66.9-70.1 in (170-178 cm)
Lifespan: 20+ years in the wild. The oldest known turkey vulture, Tolouse, is 38 years old, and lives at the San Francisco Zoo.

Turkey Vulture Vocalization
This vocalization was taken from our cam in 2013. It includes two young vultures food begging and chasing a parent.

Learn More About Bald Eagles
March 27, 2024: An Eagletude fit for royalty! DN17 and DN18 turned three and two days old today.

Eaglet Growth and Development: Week One

We’re writing a series of blogs about the first few weeks of an eaglet’s life. An eaglet spends roughly 75 to 80 days in the nest. For about the first half, it grows and gains weight. For about the second half, it grows flight feathers and starts developing the skills it will need post-fledge. We will focus on week one in this blog. What can we expect in the first week following hatch? Like humans, a growing eaglet has developmental

March 25, 2024: DN17 and 18 eat.

Bald eagle tongues and beaks!

We know that bird beaks are specialized for feeding and daily tasks. Birds of prey have strong, curved beaks with sharp edges to help them tear meat. Falcons specialize even further, adding a tomial tooth to help them kill prey. Dabbling ducks have tiny, comb-like structures on their beaks to strain small animals, insects, and plants from water and mud, while piscivorous ducks have saw-like structures to help them hold on to struggling fish. But what about bird tongues or,

Development of an avian embryo

Peek inside a bald eagle egg: 24 days!

As of this writing, there are two eagle eggs at Decorah North. The youngest is just over 22 days old and the oldest is just over 25 days old. We anticipate that the oldest egg will hatch on or around the morning of March 23. . What do embryonic eagles look they look like as they develop and grow inside their eggs? Dr. Peter Sharpe from the Institute for Wildlife Studies developed a table of bald eagle embryonic development based

March 30, 2018: Mrs. North's brood patch

What is a brood patch?

Daylight length, or photoperiod, strongly influences hormone production in birds. In the northern hemisphere, our story begins shortly after the winter solstice in December. As daylight length increases, a cascade of hormones causes birds’ gonads to swell in preparation for reproduction, egg-laying, and incubation. In this blog, we’ll discuss the role the brood patch plays in incubation and determining clutch size. How do bald eagles keep their eggs warm in subzero temperatures? They apply heat via a special area of

Chicken embryos roughly 25% of the way to hatch

Peek inside a bald eagle egg: 11 days!

What do embryonic eagles look they look like as they develop and grow inside their eggs? Dr. Peter Sharpe from the Institute for Wildlife Studies developed a table of bald eagle embryonic development based on work done by Hamburger and Hamilton (1951). While not all bald eagle eggs hatch in 35 days, the stages of development look something like this… What happens between the third and the 11th day? When we last touched on the topic, our embryonic eagle had

Click for More About Bald Eagles
News

We not have any Turkey Vulture news. Keep checking back!

March 27, 2024: An Eagletude fit for royalty! DN17 and DN18 turned three and two days old today.

Eaglet Growth and Development: Week One

We’re writing a series of blogs about the first few weeks of an eaglet’s life. An eaglet spends roughly 75 to 80 days in the nest. For about the first half, it grows and gains weight. For about the second half, it grows flight feathers and starts developing the skills it will need post-fledge. We will focus on week one in this blog. What can we expect in the first week following hatch? Like humans, a growing eaglet has developmental

March 26, 2024: Baby's first fish eyeball? This was a large bite for DN17. It took several tries for the eaglet to gulp it all down!

March 26, 2024: NestFlix, News, and Cute Overload from Decorah North and Decorah!

Did the eaglets get enough to eat today? It’s an evergreen question, especially when you see the little bobbleheads shivering in the snow, tumbling over, and wrestling one another instead of eating. Fortunately, Mr. North and DNF are perched at the peak of provisioning! They fed the terrific two thirteen times today, with twelve feedings going to DNF and one going to Mr. North. Wrestlemania or not, the eaglets ate well, with eleven feedings for DN17 and eight for DN18.

March 25, 2024: Bald Eagle DNF, Eaglets DN18 and DN17

March 25, 2024: The eaglet has landed!

The eaglet has landed! DN18 hatched at 3:14 AM on Monday, March 25. It’s a good thing DNF got plenty of sleep last night, since these eaglets look like a real handful! We don’t know exactly when DN17 hatched, since it was dry by the time we caught our first glimpse at 6:31 AM yesterday. But I’d guess that the the two eaglets are roughly one day apart. No related posts.

March 25, 2024: DN17 and 18 eat.

Bald eagle tongues and beaks!

We know that bird beaks are specialized for feeding and daily tasks. Birds of prey have strong, curved beaks with sharp edges to help them tear meat. Falcons specialize even further, adding a tomial tooth to help them kill prey. Dabbling ducks have tiny, comb-like structures on their beaks to strain small animals, insects, and plants from water and mud, while piscivorous ducks have saw-like structures to help them hold on to struggling fish. But what about bird tongues or,

March 24, 2024: DN17 eats its first meal!

March 24, 2024: Welcome DN17!

Congratulations to DNF and Mr. North on the arrival of DN17, the 17th eaglet to hatch at the North nest since we started counting. We don’t know exactly when DN17 hatched, but we got our first glimpse of the little eaglet at 6:31 AM CDT. Welcome to the world, DN17! Good morning, DN17! DN17 has arrived! Bobble-headed & pink footed! DN17’s first feeding… No related posts.

>> More News
Nest Records
Turkey Vulture 2024 Nest Records

Egg Laying
TBD. In 2023, the vultures laid egg #1 on April 23 
Egg Hatching
TBD. In 2023, the first egg hatched on May 30

Fledging
TBD

Vultures and Outcomes >> Detailed Annual Information

Year Nest  Chicks Known Outcomes
2023 Marshall Turkey Vultures MOTV5, MOTV6 The vultures laid two eggs and produced two chicks.
2022 Marshall Turkey Vultures MOTV3, MOTV4 The vultures laid two eggs and produced two chicks.
2021 Marshall Turkey Vultures MOTV1, MOTV2 The vultures laid two eggs and produced two chicks.
Missouri Turkey Vulture Video Library

Missouri Turkey Vulture Video Library

Click the hamburger icon on the top right of the video below to watch this year’s videos, or view our full Missouri Turkey Vulture library on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/RaptorResourceProject.