Early this spring near Fort Qu'Appelle, Saskatchewan, Ervin Huber was checking an old barn on one of Dave Huber's wheat fields and was startled by a huge vulture that flew out through the hay loft and past his head as he opened the door. He saw that it was a turkey vulture so he started looking for a nest and sure enough he found two eggs. For the next month we all started dropping by the barn and looking for any hatching. In June we saw that she was sitting on the eggs and after a few more vigils the fluffy white chicks hatched. Ugly but spectacular.

Here's what Peterson Field Guides has to say about them in their handbook, Western Birds:

Each time we went into the barn we heard a horrible hissing sound, like a huge snake! The barn was changed to store grain may years ago so the barn door was made into a grain chute. We had to climb up and over it and then slide down onto the dirt floor. This took us several minutes. The first time we did it Joerg shouted out, "The vulture's coming back." We made it out in world record time! As the chicks got older the hissing got louder. The parents were out foraging each time we were there. They heard the hissing from miles away, returned and started circling us. They didn't like the way we were carrion on.

You can see that their breeding grounds, in red, cover most of the US and parts of Western Canada. I think they could have heard their babies crying from Mexico!

We would visit often and take pictures. The hissing continued and as they got older and bigger they would adopt a threatening posture to scare off predators which we seemed to be. They would spread their wings to make themselves as large as possible to frighten us off. They looked like Klingon warships from Star Trek! It didn't take much to scare us! We did manage to take a few pictures. (Taken by Joerg, Shelly and Arnie.)

This is how they look when they hiss at you!  

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The second chick was not hissing at us until the dominant one attacked.  

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They both then started hissing at each other and ignored us.  

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Who would have thought that such ugly ducklings would grow up to be so beautiful! (Photo courtesy of the Turkey Vulture Society)  

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Click here for more information from the Turkey Vulture Society.