Beech Tree News Network

I don’t mean to sound paranoid, but I think the Buzzards in our area are watching me.  I noticed it while doing yard work, one day about a month ago.  Three Buzzards lit on the roof of my house and stayed longer than a good guest should.  When I told Garey about it, he just laughed and said I had slowed down substantially since my retirement, and the Buzzards had taken note.  (Ha! Ha! He won’t think it so funny when he comes home to my bones being picked over in my own driveway, now, will he?)

               I grew up on Disney and Saturday morning cartoons, which means I have always seen Buzzards as signs of impending doom.  Who could forget the scene in Snow White in which the evil queen falls to her death at the bottom of a cliff and the droves of Buzzards that descend on her lifeless body.  I’m also a student of the Bible, so you’ve got those verses in Ezekiel, Samuel and Revelation that depict the angels of God calling forth all the carrion birds of the earth to come eat the flesh of the slain enemies of God’s people.  That makes a deep impression on a Sunday School kid.

               Our house sits between two popular Buzzard haunts, one across the road and one at the bottom of the hill behind our house.  There are as many as 15 Buzzards at a time roosting in those two areas.  They fly from one location to the other, using the shortest route, which is directly over our house.  It’s like living near LAX.  I don’t mind them flying over my house, it’s when they land on my house that unnerves me.

               As I often do when something is worrying me, I decided to do some research on the matter.  The first article I found after entering the word “Buzzard” into the search engine, was a piece on a root mystic called Dr. Buzzard.  He was a voodoo priest who put curses on people in the Low Country of the Carolinas in the 1930s (scencyclopedia.org).  That didn’t improve my comfort level, so I decided to go to the authority on all-things-birds, Audubon.

               According to Audubon’s Birdist Rule #60, Buzzards are technically Vultures, of which there are two species that live in our area, the Turkey Vulture and the Black Vulture.  The Turkey Vulture has the red head.  The Black Vulture has either a black or gray head.  The Black Vulture is all black with silver-gray patches on the tip of the wings.  The Turkey Vulture has a bicolored underwing.  While soaring, the Black Vulture’s wings are in a flat formation, whereas the Turkey Vulture holds its wings in a

V-formation.  At times, the legs of both appear an ashy white color.  That’s because they routinely pee and defecate down their legs and onto their feet (Audubon.org).  That’s probably more than any of us wanted to know about Buzzards.

               There is an interesting difference between the two birds, however.  The Black Vulture has a keen sense of sight.  The Turkey Vulture has a keen sense of smell.  Because of this difference, the Black Vulture often relies on the Turkey Vulture to locate dead carcasses that are hidden.  When hunting together, you will see the Black Vultures soaring high on the rising air masses of warm air—thermals—just killing time, while the Turkey Vulture flies lower in order to located dead stuff with their sense of smell.  The Black Vultures then bully the Turkey Vultures away from the food until they have eaten their fill, leaving what is left for the Turkey Vultures (huffpost.com).

               While all this information is interesting, I found little that explained why the Buzzards in our area were getting uncomfortably close.  One afternoon, I walked out of the house to find that four of the birds had stationed themselves on the fence posts that separate the yard from the pasture.  It was like they were waiting for me. 

               In the comment section of the Huffington Post article, one guy posted that a Buzzard started accompanying him and his wife on their morning walks.  They found him to be very friendly, even naming their new pet Charlie.  I am going to stop right here and say, if you see me walking down my driveway with a Buzzard on my heels, I’m being stalked.  Call Animal Control immediately!