The Buzzards Are Leaving Us ... No They've LEFT!

Coming out of town yesterday evening, I glanced up at the Eucalyptus trees south of the Barn Theater.  Not only were the tops of the trees populated by buzzards, the air above them was full of circling birds.  The cooling weather, including the rain we had Friday and Saturday, have set in motion a timeless event. Migration.

These birds hang around the area all summer cleaning up carrion as Nature's garbagemen.  But when fall begins to turn, the abandon us and head south, traveling in well-defined routes into Mexico where they will spend the winter.

The buzzard is fully capable of flapping wings and putting themselves into flight.  Their preference however, is to glide on long outstretched wings.  The only way to stay aloft without flapping their wings, is to descend.  They are essentially falling out of the sky in a controlled manner.  If it were not for updrafts, a buzzard in flight would soon either be on the ground, or be forced to flap their wings to regain altitude.

These big black birds are masters at finding and using every available updraft they can find.  Some feature of landscape, something that is warmer than its surroundings, will start a bubble of air upward.  As that air moves up, it will provide vertical lift to gliding birds.  Even though they are descending, relative to the air passing under their wings, the upward bubble is pushing them higher above the landscape.

When the buzzard migrates they gather into large flocks, many times numbering in the hundreds.  They fly around apparently aimlessly until somebody hits an updraft.  When that bird banks into the vertical breeze, others see it and join in.  Pretty soon everybody is circling the column of rising air being lifted into the sky.  When the lift gives out, the bird on top will level off and head for Mexico.  As the rest of the "stack" reach that height and the lift gives out for them, they too fall in line, wings outstretched and unmoving gliding along in a long line.

When the lead bird finds another rising bubble of air, it turns into the lift and another rising stack of birds is soon built.  I have seen as many as four and five "stacks" with birds streaming between the top of one stack, and entering into the bottom of the next stack.

Another interesting form of lift is caused by a breeze blowing against a hillside.  The air runs into the hill, and flows up the slope toward the top.  I have watched buzzards riding these upslope breezes, skimming the edge of the hill, their inside wing nearly touching the ground.  They will fly back and forth across a clear slope, rising on each pass until they climb above the ridge or hill.

But not every buzzard goes south.  Some will tough it out and remain through the winter, for you will see one or two here and there.  When spring returns to the San Joaquin Valley, and the green grass is growing lush and full, start watching the southern sky.  The rest of our flying garbagemen will be back when the weather warms.

For now though, the big trees along Highway 190 in the river bottom ground, the big Sycamores near PDC in particular, as well as those Eucalyptus near the Barn Theater, are a temporary roosting place for buzzards gathering together to begin their annual trek to Mexico.

Added later: I had to be in town late morning, so threw the camera in and was going to go into town past the Barn Theater on Plano, and get some pictures of the buzzards, working around the Eucalyptus trees, and the general area.

As I came along Highway 190 beside Porterville Developmental Center, there was not one buzzard in those trees, or in the park area.

This doesn't look good.  Have they all left?


I scanned the trees east of the Tule River Bridge on Plano.  Still not a buzzard in sight.

Well son of a gun.  They're gone.

I slowed as I approached the trees next to the Barn Theater.  Not one buzzard remained.  There weren't even any birds circling in the air anywhere in sight.

Nature spoke quite loudly to the buzzards, they listened, and they're on their way to Mexico, via Hinkley today.  The season has changed according to the local feathered prognosticators.