A Turkey Vulture and a Hawk

I came home from lunch to find a couple of these guys dining on a dead squirrel in our front yard and literally stopping traffic. This is a new species for our wildlife wonderland. I know that most people hate turkey vultures and think they are ugly but without them who would do carcass cleanup duty? I think they are another one of natures marvels. The one in this photo actually responded to my conversation with him by sitting nicely to have his portrait taken.

I figured the squirrel was killed a hawk and then dropped due to some interruption and later in the week my suspicion was pretty much confirmed when we saw the hawk (pictured below), probably the juvenile I blogged about earlier this summer, hunting in our back yard. This is the first time we have seen him since he about took Andrew's head off while robbing our cardinal nest.