A few years ago, a family in Oklahoma decided to tear down the old, abandoned barn on their property. While they were in the process of clearing out the barn, they discovered an unusual-looking egg on the floor.

The family knew that their neighbor, Whitney Robbins, had turkeys on her property, so they decided to give her the egg. Robbins assumed that one of her turkeys had wandered over to their barn at one point, laid an egg and forgotten about it.

Because many kinds of bird eggs look similar, Robbins wasn’t absolutely certain it had been laid by a turkey. Out of sheer curiosity, she decided to incubate the mystery egg.

For over a month, the egg sat in the incubator. As time went on, Robbins grew increasingly worried that nothing was going to happen. But one day, she saw a crack in the shell. It was starting to hatch.

“It took two days for it to fully emerge from the shell,” Robbins told The Dodo.

As the shell opened up more and more, revealing the bird’s appearance, Robbins was shocked. The baby looked nothing like a turkey.

“The second its head was out and I could see a curve in the beak, I just kind of went, ‘Oh no, I think I had a booboo, because that is definitely not a turkey,’” Robbins said.

The bird was covered in white, fuzzy feathers and had a black face and beak. In contrast, baby turkeys typically have yellow feathers and pink beaks.

“I had no clue what it was until it dried,” Robbins said. “And when I could see its bald face, I was like, ‘Oh gosh, I think that’s a vulture.’”

After doing some research, Robbins confirmed that she hadn’t incubated a turkey egg — she’d incubated a turkey vulture egg.

“We were half right,” Robbins said.

As soon as Robbins figured out that she had a wild animal on her hands, she immediately took the steps to make sure the vulture was safe. She transported the baby to a wildlife rescue that was well-equipped to care for young raptors.

Even though Robbins was only around the baby bird for a few hours, she was touched by the experience. Her research about turkey vultures helped her gain a new appreciation for the often misunderstood animals.

“There are so many people that think vultures are terrible animals, that they’re mean or they’re aggressive,” Robbins said. “They’re so important for the ecosystem. They’re so important for stopping disease.”

Now, every time Robbins sees a vulture flying around, she stops to admire them and recalls the unforgettable experience she had with the baby bird.

“Knowing we could, in a very small way, do our part in ensuring this baby’s survival is something we hold so dear to our hearts,” Robbins said.