Vultures Return to Their North End Haunts

Take a walk down Harris Avenue and you may sense their eyes are upon you. Other creatures are sizing you up, not as the dominant species, but as roasts and rib eye steaks.

To the vultures gliding overhead or roosting in neighborhood trees by the dozen, people are little more than a potential feast, just like the squirrels and raccoons that are too slow dodging traffic. And that uneasy notion may explain why some in the neighborhood try to pretend the birds are gone.

Take Bob Lizotte. He was cleaning his yard on a recent weekend afternoon when asked about the birds that circled above. "Those aren't vultures," he insisted. "The vultures have left. Those are chicken hawks."

No such luck. The feathered scavengers appear to have made the North End and nearby parts of neighboring Blackstone their permanent winter home. The birds did leave the city for a time. In warmer months, they head for wooded areas where they can build nests and raise their young undisturbed. But with the mating season over, they've returned.

The flock is made up of two species: turkey vultures, with featherless, beady, bright-red heads, and black vultures, with leathery black heads. Both are too big to miss. The turkey vulture's wingspan can measure five or six feet across, and the black vulture is only slightly smaller. They're social creatures that love a crowd. There may be a hundred or more in the Woonsocket area.

Until recently, both species were seldom seen in northern Rhode Island. They first appeared in the North End several years ago, arriving in small numbers.

Since then the flock has grown, and they've made the neighborhood a favorite roosting spot. They're in the trees at the front of . Half a dozen or more can often be seen atop a stately Victorian near the intersection of Harris Avenue and Lyman Street, the highest point in the neighborhood. They're also drawn to , on the Blackstone line. Sometimes ten or twenty can be seen on the building's distinctive roof.

Rumors abound that some residents have purchased devices that are alleged to drive off vultures. Last year, one neighbor told a TV news crew he planned to buy a machine that gets the job done using ultrasonic waves.

Postman Pete Groleau believes that's the case. "They used to be all over Castle Heights, but I haven't seen them there recently," he said while making his rounds. "I know one of the neighbors has a big air horn he blasts to make them leave."

It's easy to see why North End residents have pulled in the welcome matt. The big black birds are downright ugly.  Worse, they're symbols of death. Vultures love to sit atop house chimneys, spreading their wings in a pose that resembles Bela Lugosi waving his Dracula cape. Their diet is disgusting, too. They prefer carrion that's been rotting for several days, though they'll also eat garbage, and black vultures will kill rodents and other small animals.

It's what they leave behind, however, that really riles homeowners.

"It's amazing how they can soar so long," said Harris Avenue resident John Day as he raked leaves under the flock's watchful eye. "But they're nasty. You can see the stains they leave on rooftops, and we have to clean the stuff off our cars."

"I think they're eating squirrels," added his wife Jill. "I've found a couple of carcasses around the yard."

Leo Langlois stopped during his walk on Harris Avenue to offer a few comments on the birds' baleful presence. "I live over there, in the Castle Hill condominiums," he said, pointing toward Blackstone. "There can be 12 or 14 behind my place at any one time. My patio is a mess, and I have to keep my grandson from playing in the grass. I stopped filling the bird feed, because they peck at the stuff that falls on the ground. And I tried to lure them away by walking into the woods a pretty good distance and leaving old bread there."

You can't shoot vultures, or poison them; they're protected by federal law. There are companies, however, that sell products designed to keep them at bay. The items also repel pigeons, seagulls, crows and other birds that some consider pests. You can buy them online at www.birdbgone.com and www.bird-x.com.

Their catalogs do include ultrasound devices that emit a noise that's annoying to birds but too high-pitched for people to detect.

"We've had success with that product," said Josh Pierce, sales supervisor at Bird-X, based in Chicago. "It's completely humane. Vultures have very acute hearing, and they don't like the noise at all. But they may only move a short distance away."

The company also sells netting that can be laid over trees, as well as plastic spikes that can be placed along a roofline to keep birds off. You can also install a roofline wire that delivers a mild electric jolt. Some folks try visual tactics, such as plastic models of dead birds, but Pierce downplays their effectiveness against vultures. "These birds have no natural predators," he said. "They're not easily frightened by visuals."

Until recently, most folks in northern Rhode Island saw vultures only when they traveled. In the early decades of the 20th century, their range extended no further north than New Jersey. But in 1930, a turkey vulture nest was discovered in Connecticut, and in 1999 black vultures were found nesting in Massachusetts. Both species have since been on the rise in this corner of the world.

Bird experts blame the birds' steady northward migration on climate change and the federal highway system, which provides scavengers with a thousand-mile road kill smorgasbord. They've picked the North End as a roost because the hilltop neighborhood overlooks the Allied Waste transfer station, just across the Blackstone River in North Smithfield. When they're not feasting on dead animals, vultures will eat rotting vegetables found in garbage bins.

Julieanne Collier, a Massachusetts ornithologist who runs an educational program called Wingmasters, said there may be another lure in the area. "I've heard there's a sewage treatment plant in Woonsocket," she said. "That may be what attracts them. Vultures have a very acute sense of smell. People in the natural gas industry will actually observe vulture behavior when they're searching for leaking pipes."

Collier notes birdwatchers have also reported vulture sightings in nearby Cumberland, and suggests a forest in that town may be a summer nesting site for the Woonsocket flock.

She conceded some may find vultures hard to live with. "They're not the handsomest bird, I'll give you that," she said. "And they have some really unsavory habits. In the summer they cool off by urinating on their own legs, a process known as urohydrosis. It's also not a good idea to check out a nesting area. They're foul. The female will defend the nest by vomiting, and they can aim."

There's little worry, though, that vultures will spread disease, according to Collier. The acidic juices in their digestive tract are so strong they destroy anything that might be found in the road kill they devour. 

In Hollywood movies vultures are often seen circling a weakened soul lost in the desert. That never really happens. The birds wait until a corpse has ripened for several days before they sit down for a meal. They're drawn in by the gases released during decomposition. With their acute sense of smell, they can detect a dead mouse while soaring 200 feet in the sky.

Not everyone is disturbed by the carcass-noshing creatures. Some folks — yes, including some North End residents — enjoy observing their graceful flight. Others claim we'd be up to our necks in squashed skunks and flattened possums were it not for the cleanup services they provide.

There are also those who shun undertakers and instead let vultures handle their mortuary chores. In this country the best known example would be Beatnik poet Lew Welch. In 1971 he disappeared into the California mountains, leaving behind a suicide note with the words "not the bronze casket, but the brazen wing!" His body was never found.

In India the Zoroastrian sect has traditionally relied on vultures to dispose of their dead. Bodies are carried into a high-walled area known as "the Tower of Silence" and left behind as a feast for the birds. There were never any complaints until the recent construction of luxury condominium developments near such a tower. According to a National Geographic account, residents gripe that vultures in flight sometimes drop rotting fingers on their patios.

With few solid options for long-term deterrence, it looks like in Woonsocket, at least for now, these gruesome neighbors are here to stay.