When you live in a valley, even a small hill can be considered a mountain, and so Carrion Crow Mountain in the Arkansas River Valley, rising to the lofty height of 1080 feet above sea level (which is only about 600 feet above the surrounding valley) is the mountain-hill that I call home. The locals simply call it Crow Mountain, and indeed, it wasn’t until I was an adult that I learned its true name is Carrion Crow Mountain. What, you might ask, is a carrion crow? That’s a fancy, or maybe folksy, term for a vulture. No wonder over the years the carrion part got dropped.
The name is rather apropos. The warm breezes that almost continuously blow from the south-facing bluff I call a backyard generate updrafts upon which the vultures float, and the rugged rock outcroppings along the miles of bluff line provide quiet roosting sites. If you can overlook the whole “harbinger of death” connotation, they’re actually amazingly lovely to watch as they swoop and glide effortlessly over the tree tops. We’ve counted dozens over the bluffs on a warm winter day.
We have two types of vultures here in Arkansas, the smaller gray-headed Black Vulture and the larger red-headed Turkey Vulture. Have you ever wondered why vultures don’t have feathers on their heads? It’s so the feathers don’t get into the rotting carcasses they eat. Gross, huh? Recently, someone hit a deer not far from our home. We saw the carcass early one morning in a field about 20 feet off the road. That evening, the carcass was completely bare. I imagine a few of the neighborhoods dogs (mine included) helped themselves, but the efficiency of these birds is impressive. Supposedly, a Turkey Vulture can smell a drop of blood from a mile away!
The two pictures here were taken in my backyard. The Turkey Vulture perched on this rock outcropping just before a storm for a quick drink of water from a natural rock pool there. The other picture is of a Black Vulture perched in a pine tree on the bluff. My little Miniature Schnauzer went nuts, barking his head off, but the vulture wasn’t bothered in the least, not even when my husband and I walked out to get a closer look, remaining on his perch for a good 10 minutes.
