A Stuart woman and her granddaughter got more than they bargained for on a recent Sunday afternoon stroll.
Brenda Bowman said after church, she and her granddaughter, Kylee Bowman, 11, “went out on April 29 to enjoy our beautiful, but windy Sunday” when something caught their eyes.
Initially, “we thought it was a hawk, but then realized it wasn’t,” Brenda Bowman said, as Kylee Bowman shared photos of what the two now believe is an albino turkey buzzard.
“We guessed what it was just by looking at its head” shape, Brenda Bowman said. “I bet he had a 3-foot wing span.”
The two watched as they saw 10 to 14 other vultures flying over the albino bird, Brenda Bowman said, adding she believes the other buzzards were trying to kill the albino buzzard, which by then was seeking solace under a tree on the Bowman’s tractor shed.
“I guess they were trying to kill him because he was a different color,” she said. “He was just as big as the other turkey buzzards that were chasing him.”
“He stayed along the tree lines,” Kylee Bowman said. “He was smart.”
Brenda Bowman and her granddaughter both said the sighting was a unique experience.
“I’ve always been a country girl. I was raised in Ararat,” Brenda Bowman said. “But I’ve never seen anything like that.”
After contacting Jim Beard at the Virginia Museum of Natural History in Martinsville, Brenda Bowman said she was told the sighting “was a rarity.”
Beard, who is the director of Research & Collections and curator of Earth Sciences at the VMNH, also is an adjunct professor of Geology at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg.
Bowman said she was told that “to his knowledge, there’s never been a sighting in Virginia.”
The president of a bird club in Roanoke also was contacted, Brenda Bowman said, adding that when he learned of the potential sighting, “he said it was one of only three he’s ever heard of in his 30 year history.”
Bowman said the photos she and Kylee Bowman snapped will be shared with Beard and others in hopes the sighting can be documented.
In the meantime, they keep their eyes peeled while out walking on the farm. So far, they have not caught another sight of the visiting albino vulture.
“The last time we saw him that Sunday, he was at the creek, heading towards the state line” in the direction of Sandy Ridge, N.C., Brenda Bowman said, laughing.
