Turkey Vulture!

How many of my readers have actually seen a turkey vulture up close? And this guy doesn't count, if any of you remember him:

This video cracks me up though.

 I hadn't seen one either until today. I was driving home from work and saw this HUGE bird take off right next to the road in front of our farm. When I saw he was circling back, I pulled over to try and get a picture. I didn't get any good ones of his features, but they're not too shabby.

At first I thought he was one of the red-tailed hawks that fly around the farm, but when I googled it, the image didn't match what I saw. Then I thought maybe it was an eagle, but again, it didn't match. My last thought was a turkey vulture. Bingo. Turkey vultures actually look like this:

Kind of dinosaur-like, huh?

Up until last year, I thought what probably may of you think, that turkey vultures only live in the wild west.

Nope, they live all over the States. And I finally got to see one up close and personal today. It was pretty awesome; I'm a huge sucker for large birds.

Have any of you seen large birds up and close?