Dark wings in the greenbelt

Walking in the Onion Creek greenbelt today, I ran across a lone turkey vulture, which raised its wings and spread them when I has about 50 yards away. But unlike the vultures I blogged about recently, this one never flew away. It was a cool day, and the vulture's back was to the sun, so possibly this wing-extending is a vulture's way of warming itself.

Lifting its wings


Spreading them


It stayed this way for a couple of minutes


Eventually it folded up its wings and continued to sit on the dead branch. I continued on my walk.

A couple of hundred yards away I found a Red Admiral butterfly, still fairly active. In colder weather these butterflies will hibernate. I have found them very hard to photograph. They notice movement and tend to fly away if you approach very closely.


Bella, who never saw either of these winged creatures, had a good time on our walk.