redheaded vultures

redheaded vultures

perched on fence posts, soar away

to tall bare branches

Looks like a vulture convention, three red heads on large dark bodies perched in a row on fence posts next to the black top. As I slow the truck to a stop, I'm wondering, what poor creature are they waiting for to die? Three red heads turn and eye me for a few heart beats. I'm not moving, but somehow they know I'm not dead, so they take off to join their comrade maintaining a vigil in the top of a dead tree.
          I remember the first time I really thought about the puzzle of life and death. Grandpa just chopped the head off of a hen and the body is running around the bare dirt yard for what seems like forever. 
          Puzzled by a headless bird acting like a live one, I ask Grandpa, "How come that hen is still running around?"
          He grunts and says, "Takes awhile for the body to catch on that it's dead." Just then the hen flops over and lays still. Grandpa picks the body up by its feet and takes it to Grandma in the kitchen. 
          While Grandma is plucking the feathers off, I ask her, "How do you know when something is dead?"
          She chuckles. "When the vultures will eat it."
          "Does that mean we're vultures?"
          "No, pumpkin, you got to have a red head to be a vulture."
          "Does that mean Uncle Joe is a vulture?" Uncle Joe has red hair.
          Grandma laughs. "He's as hairy as a bear, but as far as I can tell, he don't have feathers."

red-headed turkey

red-headed turkey

vulture perched on a dead limb

eyeing carrion

Early in the morning I spot a large dark brown bird standing in the grass between the gravel road and Eddy's Pond. At first it looks like a wild turkey, but the bald head is crimson, not blue, so I quickly identify it as a turkey vulture. The buzzard doesn't stir when I pass by, but when I stop for a closer look, it takes flight, rather awkwardly spreading its six-foot wingspan, and lands on a dead tree branch nearby. There it shifts back and forth between watching me and keeping an eye on its interrupted meal. I am glad it did fly rather than engage in its most spectacular defense tactic. When disturbed it will regurgitate its last meal, surprising its assailant and leaving such a putrid smell that the animal quickly loses interest. I wonder who cleans up that mess! Like their condor cousins, these large raptors are strictly carrion feeders and thus serve an important purpose in nature. They spend hours soaring with their with their wings held in a V-shape, rarely flapping their wings, searching for dead animals. Their beaks and claws are so weak that they never catch live prey, but use their keen eyesight and highly-developed sense of smell to locate carcasses. They're often seen along along rivers where they feast on washed-up fish or on roads where they dispose of roadkill. Because of their slow take-off, they sometimes fall prey to vehicles, where they may become carrion themselves. Hailing the scavenger for being our first-responder crew, I leave it to do its job of cleaning up the crimson remains.