Remember a couple of weeks ago? I was bitching about Fall taking absolutelyfreakingever to reach South Florida? Like many of you Northerners look for the first Robin of Spring, how I look for the first Vulture of Autumn?

Well, boys and girls, just in time for the #GreatHallowTweet, the Turkey Vultures are back!

First, there was one. Then there were three:

Then there were about a dozen!

As the season progresses, that whole rooftop will be covered in sunning Turkey Vultures. A little unsettling when you think that this is the heart of downtown Miami! And then again, appropriate in a way…

This is what they look like close-up. I could never – nor would I ever – actually want to get this close, thankyouverymuch, but if I’m going to talk about the beasties, you should at least see what they look like. Charming, right? There’s a reason their heads are pretty much devoid of feathers: Being carrion-eaters, they’re able to avoid retaining a bunch of blood and guts and nasty microbes that might later cause disease if it were stuck to feathers. It’s hygenic. Hee!

Courtesy of Cornell Lab of Ornithology

Click on this photo or link and learn more about Turkey Vultures – the unsung clean-up crew of nature!

For more appetizing (in a sense) celebrations of Halloween, travel the #GreatHallowTweet Halloween Blog Hop sidebar, over there to the left, and see how 18 of my best blogger friends are whooping it up! Happy Halloween!

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Michelle at Rambling Woods is hosting Nature Notes: Signs of the Season, a weekly meme dedicated to challenging us to take a moment out of our hectic lives and notice the seasonal changes – large and small – taking place in nature all around each of us, in our own little corners of the world. Please visit Michelle and all the other participants, and maybe take some of your own Nature Notes!

Michelle is also one of our #GreatHallowTweet participants, so be sure to stop by and say Hi! You might even learn something!