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Wilson Portrait
What a bizarre buzzard!

Wilson

Buzzards are neutral Mobs from the Reign of Giants DLC. Buzzards are found in the Desert and Rockyland biomes. They circle the skies in search of Meats, appearing as shadows on the ground.

When a circling Buzzard spots meat, it will land and begin to eat it. Once done eating all Meats, Seeds, Rot, Glommer's Goop, or unharvested Mandrakes in its vicinity, it will take off again. If the player approaches a Buzzard while it is eating, it will squawk in anger and peck at the player, causing Damage. The Buzzard will not, however, pursue the player.

A Buzzard will come down for meats during the day or dusk. Killed Buzzards take 1-2 segments to respawn from their map markers, although the Buzzard shadows will not reflect this.

If a starving player enters their vicinity, buzzards will land and watch the player, waiting for them to die. They will still fly away if attacked.

A Buzzard that has landed and is moving around does not trigger Sticky Webbing.

Reign of Giants icon Reign of Giants[]

In Reign of Giants, Buzzards will spawn during all seasons.

When killed, a Buzzard drops 1 Drumstick, 1-2 Morsels, and possibly 1 Jet Feather.

Don't Starve Together icon Don't Starve Together[]

In Don't Starve Together, Buzzards do not spawn during winter.

When killed, a Buzzard drops 1 Drumstick, possibly 1 Morsel, and possibly 1 Jet Feather.

If a Rabbit is in the vicinity of a Buzzard it will attack the Rabbit on sight, though the Rabbit will likely escape this because Buzzards are slower than rabbits.

Spear Hunting[]

Attracting[]

When a piece of meat is placed in the vicinity of a Buzzard shadow, it is possible one might fly down next to the meat. If the Buzzard is far away from it, it will hop slowly (like Rabbits do) towards the meat. Buzzards that are approached preemptively will fly away. When attacked before squawking in anger, Buzzards will either fly away or fight back.

Buzzards can take anywhere from 0.5 – 30 seconds to eat a single piece of meat, so caution must be taken if the player is hunting with little bait. If low on meat, one can use a single piece of meat surrounded by Seeds. If a Buzzard eats the meat very quickly, they will stick around for the nearby Seeds.

Alternatively, a player can place a piece of meat on the ground and use a Bush Hat to camouflage themselves right next to the bait. The player should wait until the vulture is within melee distance and then attack once the vulture has begun eating.

Attacking[]

It is recommended to melee the Buzzard only once to get its peck on cooldown unless the player is positioned just right to hit the Buzzard an additional two times while it is landing. After it has landed one can then kite it with two hits in between pecks. Boomerangs and other ranged weapons are a safe bet as the Buzzards will not flee when attacked while eating.

Buzzards that are near each other will become hostile and peck each other to death. This can happen naturally when they land or be intentionally caused by the player pushing them. If the Buzzards are not within pecking distance, they will stand around squawking at each other indefinitely.

Below is the number of hits it takes with each weapon to kill Buzzards when playing with characters with a default damage modifier. The Weather Pain is not included due to the random nature of its projectile.

Weapon Fishing RodBug Net Lucy the Axe Shovel Pitchfork

Hammer Torch Umbrella

Walking Cane Willow's Lighter

Axe Pickaxe

Luxury Axe Opulent Pickaxe

Boomerang

PickSlashAxeSpear

Fire Dart Fire Staff

Bat Bat Ham Bat Morning Star Tentacle Spike Battle Spear

Thulecite Club

Tooth Trap Slurtle Slime

Dark Sword Blow Dart GunpowderOld Bell
No. of hits for
Buzzard
30 10 8 5 4 3 3-4 2 or 3 3 2 2 1

Buzzards take 2 blasts from the Ice Staff to be frozen and 4 Sleep Darts to be put to sleep. Killing Buzzards does not add to the player's naughtiness.

Placeholder Trivia[]

  • "Buzzard" can either refer to a number of broad-winged hawks or, usually in North America, a New World vulture, typically a turkey vulture. Since Klei is located in Canada, Buzzards of Don't Starve are based on the latter, and they appear to be and behave like vultures rather than hawks.
  • Wickerbottom refers to it as Cathartes, which is a genus of New World vultures which includes the turkey vulture (aka buzzard), the lesser yellow-headed vulture, and the greater yellow-headed vulture.
  • Real buzzards hiss instead of squawk since they lack vocal chords.

Mosquito Bugs[]

  • Buzzards may be seen one or two layers higher than the player. They cannot be attacked, but will still move around like normal and can fly off. This makes them appear very large as they can be very close to the camera.
  • Debug spawning a Buzzard causes a crash when the Buzzard flies from the spot it was spawned. This is likely because each buzzard is attached to a shadow, but the spawned ones do not. When the buzzard flies away, the game searches for it's shadow, but since it has none it cannot save so the game crashes.
  • Buzzards may spawn in the middle of the ocean, depending on how many spawn locations there are on the map.
  • Occasionally, a lot of Buzzard Shadows will circle in a certain spot of the desert.

Blueprint Gallery[]

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