Birdwatching 1

Subject: Turkey Vultures (Cathartes aura)
(PGC Photo/Jacob Dingle @ www.pgc.state.pa.us)

We have a personal and scientific interest in other birds, and take every opportunity to add another individual to our "life list". A bird needs a hobby, especially when they forget to open the top of the cage in the morning, and you end up spending the day sitting on your perch looking out the window.

Today, I'd like to report on the local turkey vultures, which are starting to congregate on the cell phone tower in the field behind the house. Sometimes, in the winter, there 50-60 vultures out there, sunning themselves, drying wings, and keeping a weather eye out for anything dead that happens along. They are remarkable fliers, and you'd think any bird that can fly that well would be a beauty! Up close though--moth-eaten, dusty, malodorous....tsk, tsk.

I append a poem (not by me):

Sitting on the roof ridge
On garbage day,
Drying his wings in the sun,
A nightmare chicken,
Unwanted, unloved.
But when he takes to the sky,
And plays above the wind gusts,
Balancing in the cold clean air;
Hearts ache to fly with him.

As poetry, it's not my cup of tea, but the price I pay to have one of the flightless ones act as my sub-editor.
Geoffrey