It’s rare that I get to look down on a Turkey Vulture while trying to capture it in flight. But as we stood at the edge of the Cape Horn lookout, a single Turkey Vulture was soaring around the Columbia River Gorge.

From up there, the bird sat below us at first, working the air over the river, with barely a flap between turns. I’m used to seeing these birds as dark specks against a bright sky, the kind you pick out in between races at a track meet and never get close to. This time, the green wall of the far bank stood behind it, and I could see the whole animal against the trees… the brown-edged feathers, the bare red head, the lean it put into each bank.

It worked the gorge for a while, drifting out over the water and curling back toward the rock. Every time it tipped, the light caught the pale silver lining under its flight feathers. Then it found whatever it was reading in the air and started to climb, and somewhere in those few minutes, the angle flipped on me. I went from shooting down at its back to shooting up at its belly, the bird now a clean silhouette on a washed-out sky, wings open all the way to the tips.

By the time it caught a higher line and slid off along the river, I’d stopped checking the viewfinder of my camera and was just watching it go. There are many new experiences ahead.

Jeff Turner

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