Sanguine Tenacious Tidings

Flying Friends

Prompt for Blog City from 10/9/2024 about something strange?

HI!

Actually, I played with a flock of crows this week. I was out walking one of the dogs. We stopped by a rock pile that has a grove of trees growing out of it. A very large all black bird suddenly flew from the high part of a tree. It swooped low over the ground where we were standing. It was very large too big to be a crow. Being startled so suddenly caused me to look up into the Poplar trees.

A bald-headed vulture was sitting in a tree with its' great wings spread staring at us. Usually, we see them circling over a field or riding wind currents up high in the blue sky. This one was as close as I've ever seen one. It sat very still and stared at us. So, I took the opportunity to look it over really good. It held its' wings spread so I could see the massive white feathers that are on the underneath of its' wings. Then the very large all black bird I first saw swooped onto a different limb in the same tree. The vulture folded its' wings then and just sat there watching us.

I heard a crow in another tree caw, so I tried to imitate the sound the crow made. The sound I made must have been acceptable because it called back. Drifter sat down and just looked back and forth between me and the crow as we exchanged vocal messages. I still wonder what I said? Anyway the caws went back and forth for a couple minutes then the crow shifted his sounds to one I could not imitate and flew over into a different stand of trees where several other crows were sitting and took up the conversation with it's friends making totally different aural sounds.

Drifter and I turned toward the house. Suddenly out of the midst of the field a murder of crows flew up out of the grass and goldenrod. They had been there the whole time. I'm sure there were 7 or 8 in the group. They flew up into the sky over us. They circled over our heads and called to one another while we stood and watched them. This lasted for several minutes then they left. The whole time This went on the vulture just sat in the tree and watched. Also, the large black bird sat and watched.

My guess is the black bird was a black vulture which I've never seen around here before. Maybe traveling with the bald-headed vulture. Later in the day I looked out the kitchen window and the vultures were still there. Birds are my friends. Maybe they were warning me of danger.

When Keith came home, he walked over into the field near the grove of poplar trees. He told me there is a deer carcass in the field. He could not find what killed the deer, because it was picked clean to the bones.

We often have a lot of crows around because I feed pellets to my parrots, and they waste some by throwing pellets to the bottom of the cage. I throw the waste over under the outside bird feeders. The crows really like the pellets. They stop every day and poke around the bottom of the feeders to find the pellets.

Not normal to find a dead deer so close to the house though. I wonder if it was poachers because Keith said it did not have a head. Just a pile of bones.

SEE YA!

P.S. Don't view this with a superstitious view. I took a course about bird biology from Cornell University and spent a summer with the Purple Martin Conservation Association, when they were at Edinboro, Pennsylvania, as an intern. Birds are fascinating. Some of them can see for extreme ranges and can see spectrums that people cannot see. So, spirit walkers are not a surprise to a bird.

What is normal for wildlife on the earth may be different, than what is normal for a human.












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apondia#1781748



















apondia#1781748