Here's an interesting problem

I live in a rural area and there is always a lot of road kill and plenty of turkey vultures to take care of it. Recently I noticed several vultures over in my neighbor's yard and I assumed there was something dead there although, they were not circling the area like they normally do.

Yesterday we noticed one of our bird baths was bone dry and I had just filled it earlier. The recently filled feeders were empty also. A little while ago we noticed a vulture on one of our feeders and it is becoming obvious they have discovered the dessert bar.

I have never heard of vultures eating bird seed or drinking from bird baths, have you? What can I do about this, they are not desirable backyard birds.

Have you seen the Vultures actually drink from the water, or eat from the feeders? I would be running for the camera. :)

I now just vaguely remember someone posting in a bird forum that they saw Turkey Vultures eating popcorn. If they are eating seed, it will not sustain them, so I cannot imagine they'd hang around for long. I am not sure there is much you can do to deter the Vultures.

This was a bird we have deliberately tried attracting to our yard. (We're rural, too) using old meat from the freezer, but we discovered they do not like hanging around when there are active children running around the house yelling that we have Vultures in the pasture.

LOL, I should have run for the camera but ran for a broom instead which I threw at the bird (missing it of course.) Perhaps I need to rent your children, my large dog is not doing the trick.

Seeds are not the normal food for carrion eating birds but I have seen them on my neighbor's feeders as well as my own. It is always possible they were just sitting there but that seems a bit of a stretch.

We have a lot of large birds here like Great Horned Owls which will catch rodents or whatever and eat what they want and drop the rest. The vultures are good at cleaning up the mess. Normally they circle if they find a big catch like a deceased deer. We have not noticed any circling; it is strange and I am hoping it was just an odd family of vultures that will get their act together and move on.

Dead people (or dogs!) would be better at attracting them ;-) ;-)

Resin

Ewwwwww

Chillybean, I guess I should have asked why you would want to attract these birds to your pasture?

We appreciate most birds and in spite of the Vultures' ugly faces, we think they are beautiful. They are just so graceful in flight. If there wasn't so much activity around here, I can imagine they'd try to nest in one of our old grain bins.

I guess I am very fortunate in having many equally large and graceful birds. From my standpoint, the turkey vulture's only redeeming characteristic is how good they are at cleaning up carrion. They are valuable birds to have around in that aspect but definitely utilitarian.