Late Summer Turkey Vulture And Common Sunflowers

A field of wild Common Sunflowers in bloom – Nikon D500, f9, 1/1250, ISO 500, Nikkor 18-200mm VR at 52mm, natural light

I’ve mentioned a few times recently that Common Sunflowers bloom in many of the areas that I head to when I want to find and photograph birds. In some areas I find a clump of wild sunflowers here and a clump there and in some locations I find huge, expansive locations covered in their sunny yellow flowers.

Summer Common Sunflowers in bloom – Nikon D500, f9, 1/1600, ISO 500, Nikkor 18-200mm VR at 44mm, natural light

I adore seeing and photographing Common Sunflowers wherever I find them. They just make me smile. Yesterday I smiled often because I found a lot of these sunny wildflowers.

Common Sunflowers blooming in northern Utah – Samsung cell phone f1.7, 1/3928, ISO 50, 4mm

I take photos of the sunflowers using all of my cameras including the one in my phone because with it I can get nice, wide angle views.

This has been a great year for Common Sunflowers even though we have been experiencing extreme to exceptional drought conditions.

Late summer Turkey Vulture on a metal pipe – Nikon D810, f9, 1/1000, ISO 500, Nikkor 500mm VR with 1.4x TC, natural light

Yesterday I found an adult Turkey Vulture perched on a metal pipe with a field of sunflowers below and behind it. I liked the pop of yellow in my photos of this bird. The vulture was so close to the road that with my 1.4x teleconverter attached I could barely fit the entire bird in the frame so I had to remove it.

Turkey Vulture in front of blooming sunflowers – Nikon D810, f9, 1/1250, ISO 500, Nikkor 500mm VR, natural light

After removing my teleconverter I felt more comfortable because in full frame mode I knew I wasn’t going to clip any of the vulture’s body parts and i could see more of the out of focus sunflowers in the background too.

Turkey Vulture showing its tongue – Nikon D810, f9, 1/1250, ISO 500, Nikkor 500mm VR, natural light

The Turkey Vulture yawned which meant I was able to get great views of its tongue. I cropped in a little closer here to show the tongue of the vulture.

Yawning Turkey Vulture showing its tongue – Nikon D810, f9, 1/1600, ISO 500, Nikkor 500mm VR, natural light

And in this next frame I loosened the crop to show more of the background with the Turkey Vulture sticking out its tongue.

Fluffy Turkey Vulture and blooming sunflowers – Nikon D810, f8, 1/1250, ISO 500, Nikkor 500mm VR, natural light

The Turkey Vulture gave me several different poses and I was happy to take photos of them all. Here my photo shows the vulture after it had shaken its feathers and was settling back down on the rusty metal pipe.

Turkey Vulture getting ready to lift off – Nikon D810, f9, 1/1600, ISO 500, Nikkor 500mm VR, natural light

As I took photos of this Turkey Vulture I wondered out loud if these might be my last of year (LOY) photos of this species because they will be migrating soon to spend the winter in warmer climates. I do know that I will miss them once they have gone on the wing to head south.

I found a lot of other birds yesterday including several immature and adult Red-tailed Hawks but I wanted to share these images of the Turkey Vulture first because I often feel like they are an underdog in the bird photography world.

Life is good.

Mia

Click here to view more of my Turkey Vulture photos plus facts and information about this species. Click here to see more of my flower, shrub and tree photos.