Once airborne, turkey vultures become birds of grace and agility. Using their large, broad wings to ride warm air thermals, they soar upward and rarely have to flap their wings. Turkey vultures are easy to identify in flight. Their wings are held in a V-shape, or dihedral, over their back. Because they are very light for their size, they tend to teeter back and forth in the wind.
Vultures are social animals.
Several dozen turkey vultures may flock to a large carcass within minutes after its death. Although turkey vultures are usually silent, this all changes when they gather to eat. Silence is replaced with shoving, hissing, grunting, growling and squabbling, and fighting between vultures breaks out at times. Injury, however, rarely occurs during the upheaval of the feeding frenzy. The bare head of a turkey vulture is an adaptation for its scavenging life style, and helps keep the head clean when the vulture sticks its head inside the carcass of a large animal.