Who would have expected it? Who?
Harbingers of DOOM!
They know!
They can smell it!
Stock up on your survival supplies! The Zombie Apocalypse is coming and they have narrowed it down to your neighborhood! Don’t let Rich in your home - he is probably already a member of The Typing Dead.
And the Vulture chorus sings: There’s nothing sweet as rotting meat.
Corsair. Decaf. Seriously.
There has been a squadron of vultures circling my neighborhood the past few days and roosting in a series of trees behind the house directly across the street from my own. Like maybe 15 of them. Most of them just sit there, creepily, but 3 or 4 of them routinely shuffle around among the branches and thrash a torrent of assorted autumn debris to the ground. The squirrels are in a state of crisis and my already overcrowded yard has become a rodential refugee camp.
The fuck?
Murder them.
I love how a vulture, which probably weighs 15-20 pounds tries to land in a small tree. The sucker is heavier than the entire tree. It lands on a branch and the branch breaks. And the huge bird flies off screaming at the tree.
“You bastard! I thought you’d hold me up!”
“Vanadium Vulture lies in a ghastly pool of thirty weight.”
Sorry, I’m in Wasteland mode.
Just think if I actually drank coffee!
Just don’t park your car under the tree they are loitering in. Don’t. Seriously.
Yeah. Vulture or even seagull crap has a very strong acid content. Once it hits the car you’re out of luck.
An interesting story. Back in Brooklyn, indigenous Quaker parrots took over the Greenwood Cemetery. The literally got rid of the pigeons that used to live there. Quakers are very territorial. Once they decided that the cemetery was theirs, they made sure that there was never a pigeon in the area. The plus side of that is that Quaker poop is not acid. While pigeon poop is.
The owners of the cemetery noticed that the headstones and the mausoleums weren’t being etched by the Quaker poop.
So they gladly welcomed the new birds. And there is now a tour that you can take to see the huge Quaker parrot nests in the various spaces above the buildings in the cemetery.
Quaker parrots are the only parrots that build communal nests. Some of the nests can weigh over 200 pounds.
They have many enterences and as well have little areas for each family.
Literally, parrot condos.
Ha this happened to my dog (60lb shepherd/chow mix) once. We were living in a house that backed up to a green belt and I would walk the dog back there (no leash) to avoid having her shit on my own land. Anyway, dog was like 50 feet ahead of me having a grand time when this owl swoops in from behind me flying about 3 feet off the ground. It got right on top of my dog, clawed her and then went up in a tree. Dog yelped and looked at me like I did it, never saw the owl.
Also, vultures are super common in my neighborhood. They feast on squirrels and deer weekly. They hang out in packs on those power line tower things just waiting for carnage.
Even worse, when vultures feel threatened they will puke on you and their vomit is so noxious that there is nothing you can do to save the clothes you are wearing when this happens. Just set them on fire.
I have a good owl story from last week. Every Fall I volunteer helping grad students band migrating Northern Saw-whet Owls. Last Wednesday was the last night of the season and we caught an owl who cut his tongue on the mist net. He must have panicked at that point because he was extremely tangled in the net so we process him as quickly as possible, cleaned the blood off his face, (imagine a mother cleaning her child’s face with a wet Kleenex), and then I went to release him.
Saw-whets are very small – Maybe a little bigger than your fist. To release an owl, I hold my right arm horizontal across my body, place the owl on my arm while holding him with my left hand, then walk off into the woods away from our camp lights and release. Most owls take off the second I let go but some are really mellow and content to hang out for a minute or two before taken off.
Typically the banding process is not very stressful for the owl at all but this poor guy had been through an ordeal so he wanted time to recover. For the next 45 minutes it was just me and him, hanging out deep in the woods. For a while he was so still that I was worried about him. My eyes hadn’t adjusted fully to the dark yet so I could just barely make him out. I gently stroked the back of his head and he closed his eyes and titled his head back, (“skying” is what we call this behavior and you can almost imagine the owl purring). Once I knew he was okay I didn’t want to spend too much comforting him because I wanted him to fly off but I did murmur quiet little pep talks from time to time, hoping to sooth him. By the end my eyes had adjusted fully to the dark and it was amazing watching him sitting on my arm, calmly swiveling his head to survey every tiny noise he heard. Eventually he flew off looking none the worse for wear.
This may be the last year for the banding station as the student who ran it for the last two year is moving and there is no one waiting in the wings to take over. If so, it was an amazing last encounter with one of these incredible tiny owls.
Ha! Those are great. Here’s a Saw-whet at a rehab facility:
Awwwww! Never enough owl videos.
I love mean and clever birds, especially owls, magpies, crows, parrots and ravens!
…
That is all.
So you never get vultures normally in your part of the usa? If that is the case then i’d put it down to a few things:
1.Global warming (changing environmental factors)
2.Problem in food supply for those vultures (could be down to point 1)
3.A sign of the End Times (…which can also be down to point 1!)
Here’s a nice piece in the New York Times about Saw-whet Owl banding:
http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/04/tracking-a-parliament-of-tiny-owls/
Love me some vultures / buzzards!
You can see this one using his inner eyelids, aka nicitating membranewhich is awesome:
09-BuzzardPeak-8652 by Kadath, on Flickr
09-BuzzardPeak-8653 by Kadath, on Flickr
09-BuzaardPeak-8734 by Kadath, on Flickr
09-BuzzardPeak-8665 by Kadath, on Flickr
If you love vultures as much as i do, a must click:
http://imgur.com/gallery/dQnI8
Quote from that link: “turkey vultures and sorority girls have a lot in common”
HAH!