A Chicken Vulture!

I noticed The Dish was open again on Saturday and we decided to take a walk around yesterday to see what devastation the fires caused. The good news is that the fires didn't spread too far, the bad news is that the area will bear a dark scar for a while. I think I'll use my observations and photos from that walk for my second entry in my article series, so stay tuned.


Now, about that photo above. There's a funny story about that...

My family (my wife, son, and daughter) were walking on the path when my wife pointed at a big brown bird and the following conversation occurred:

Her: "Hey look." [quietly, while jabbing my shoulder] "A chicken... No, a rooster."

Me: "A turkey!" [pause] "A turkey vulture!"

[much laughing]

Me: "A chicken vulture!"

[more laughing, maybe we were just lightheaded from the walk]

During this conversation, I happened to have my 70-200mm reading and on the camera, so I managed to fire off a few shots before the chicken turkey vulture flew away. Sadly, I missed the focus on a few of them (I swear there is something up with this 20D) but a few came out ok.

The lighting and my angle wasn't ideal. The conversation (and the timing of the conversation) was hilarious.

Oh, and this is what it looks like when a turkey vulture flies away.


For as big (and fat) as it looked on the ground, it was very graceful in the air. I can only assume it was in the area looking for toasted animals from the fire.