One summer at our cottage on White Lake, Ont., west of Ottawa, I spied a foot-tall white ball of fluff with a long, dark beak sitting on the walkway. It was a baby bird. On previous visits a month earlier, my husband and I had been surprised to see a pair of turkey vultures circling the peninsula. Their presence then, and the large, long-beaked chick now, led us to one conclusion: we had turkey vultures nesting on our property.
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A couple of days later, two chicks appeared on the walkway. We quickly researched to find out about turkey vultures and their young. We were concerned that the parents would abandon the chicks now that we were on the scene. But a few days passed, and the chicks seemed to be thriving. We decided that the adults must be visiting at night to feed them.
Our usual cottage activities were considerably curtailed out of concern for the chicks, and we studiously avoided noisy chores. Instead, we spent the time watching and photographing. We made up names for the pair: Vinnie and Virginie, Up and Away, Mutt and Jeff…
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As cottage guests, they were quiet. They would come out from under the cottage mid-morning to sun, then later to explore the property. When the chicks started venturing into the woods, we would spot the parents in the canopy. Eventually, the young walked through the underbrush to the back of the property to be fed. And so, they grew. The larger chick fledged mid-September; the smaller one, a couple of weeks later. We did not see them again. Except, perhaps, the following summer, on our first weekend back at the cottage, when we saw two pairs of vultures fly over the cottage, circle above the lake…and then fly away.
This article originally appeared in the Sept/Oct ’25 issue of Cottage Life.
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