Turkey Vulture-too close for visual comfort
This Turkey Vulture was with a large group, most flying but a few others hanging out on a fence, in Otero County. The top pic shows an adult Turkey Vulture with a moderate amount of white tubercles on it's face with "black hairlike feathers on lores surrounding the tubercles" as described in Raptors of Western North America . You can see the tubercles up close by double-clicking on the pic (tho the photo gets blurry it shows the features). The bottom pic is of the same bird but with it's nictitating membrane over it's eye.