I had a probable Turkey Vulture in flight in Volunteer Park, Seattle
two weeks ago on Sunday (Aug 14th?) around late morning.

I was on the western side of the park (in the "hollowway") looking at
the Cooper's Hawks nesting tree.

I heard a couple of crows making a commotion (caw calls) and looked
south towards them. I saw a four "crows" just below the top of the
tree height. Then I realized that one of the black birds was not a
crow: very large; buteo-like "slabby" wings with winglets well-spread
at the ends of the wing; in a glide (the crows were all flapping).
The underside of the wing was dark but distinctly two tone: black
underwing coverts and dark grey primaries and secondaries. No white
at all seen on the underneath of the wing or tail of the bird.

As it was coming through the trees (and I had the rain-covers on my
bin but didn't realize ...) I didn't get the bins up on it before it
disappeared past a tree. Didn't see the head.

Perhaps a three second or so look. Didn't get a second look and I
didn't immediately know the underwing ID but I didn't know that I'd
seen that underwing wing pattern in Peterson earlier in the week.

On Sep 1, 2008, at 3:56 PM, Diann MacRae wrote:

> Turkey vultures are on the move, slowly right now, but through the
> month, there should be some large counts even over Seattle.

--
Kevin Purcell
kevinpurcell at pobox.com