I guess you could say this post is about the birds and the bees! 😁
Usually when I see Turkey Vultures, they’re soaring way above me—tiny V’s in the sky. If I held up a ruler to the sky they’d look about 1/4” long. In reality, these birds are huge and so of course Hubby & I were delighted to get a close-up view of a “TV” when one landed on a dead tree branch in our backyard! It was a great opportunity to observe one more closely and illustrate it for my Perpetual Journal!
TVs are indeed large birds with wingspans over 5 1/2 feet! They feed on animals that are already dead, and so being “bald” on top (with no feathers on their heads) helps them stay clean when they stick their heads deep into whatever they’re eating.
You might be wondering how TVs (literally) stomach eating things that are already dead. According to All About Birds, “The Turkey Vulture’s stomach acid is extremely acidic, so Turkey Vultures can digest just about anything. This also allows them to eat carcasses tainted with anthrax, tuberculosis, and rabies without getting sick.” TVs are part of our environmental cleanup crew!
About Those Bees
For my 2023 Perpetual Journal art on this same page, I illustrated some Longhorn Bees that had been gathering and sleeping on the dried-out flower stems of a Brittlebush plant in our yard. I’m happy to report we’ve seen our Longhorn Bee friends again in 2024 the past few weeks, though they’ve “bee”n gathering on a different Brittlebush from last year—one about 6’ away. In 2023 we saw groups of 40 or more Longhorn Bees crowded together on just one Brittlebush plant but in 2024 we’ve counted at least 80 Longhorn Bees clustered together on a single Brittlebush plant!
Longhorn Bees are ≤20mm long including their antennae and are “solitary bees”—bees that don’t form colonies, produce honey or have a queen. Solitary bees aren’t aggressive and don’t swarm, either!
Although they’re “solitary”, the males gather around sunset, buzzing around a lot before they settle down in clusters for their nightly snooze. However, recently my keen-eyed Hubby said he saw what he described as “an introvert bee—sleeping quietly by itself on a different plant.” 😂 Ha ha ha! That Hubby o’mine sure has a great sense o’humor! 😍
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Seeing your backyard birds and bees images is so interesting! Both tiny and huge! Also, now I understand how Turkey Vultures can enjoy their...um...dining habits. Thank you, TVs, for keeping our world tidier and healthier.