This turkey vulture was huddled in a tree when I almost passed her in my rush to escape the coming snow!
Okay, but before scrolling on, can we appreciate how beautifully the snow accents her eyelashes! Or… eye feathers… (shrug)
Now, turkey vultures really are fascinating in so many ways.
Despite how common they are, they have quite a few rather uncommon quirks!
In us humans, our voice box is the larynx, which is right at the top of the trachea. Part of this cartilage even makes up your Adam’s apple, in case that helps you envision it. However, in most birds, their voice box is way (pause to add way more y’s than necessary) down the trachea – right where it splits into two branches to meet each lung.
This allows birds to have more control over the sounds they can make. This specialized organ in birds is called the syrinx.
Pretty cool fact, huh?
Well it actually doesn’t have anything to do with the turkey vulture so you can forget it.
Turkey vultures actually don’t have either a larynx or a syrinx.
Because of this they can only make simple sounds – mostly things like hissing or grunting.
Maybe that’s a good thing. Imagine a turkey vulture sitting outside your window chirping at 6 a.m.!
So there you go! Now you know a random fact about turkey vultures that you’ll probably never use in your life…
Except maybe to tell your friends to make yourself sound smart. (We’ve all done it).
– Some fun sources –
https://www.desertmuseum.org/vultures/
https://www.science.org/content/article/bird-voice-box-one-kind-animal-kingdom
Nicole's Navigation Network 