OK, I'm kinda giggling as I write that headline. I couldn't resist. Nothing implied, it just sounded like an attention-grabber, you can plug in your own punchline.
I'm not blogging about financial shenanigans, just the new neighbors. Have you seen them? A large gang of turkey vultures has taken to circling our fair little city and environs.
I first sighted them one morning as I peered bleary-eyed out the window from bed. I put on my glasses thinking they might be the bald eagles that fish in the channel waters here occasionally. However I could see these had the telltale under-carriage of a buzzard. Something about seeing vultures hovering over your home doesn't bode well.
My next encounter with the creatures was when I fell down in slippery snow out one day with my camera. It's not a good feeling landing on your butt only to look up and see a slew of hungry birds wafting round your clumsy corpse.
These guys don't discriminate between city and suburban, heck, I watched them circling Sunsets while eating breakfast just recently. I like to think they aren't stalking me specifically but just like the small-town flavor, ha, get it, of the Wayzata/Minnetonka borderlands.
My research shows I've misjudged the scavengers. Apparently they have evolved to the point that their talons are useless at clutching and carrying prey since they feed upon dead to dying animals, otherwise known as carrion. They are described as gentle. So I should be much more afraid of those majestic American symbols flying close to the house, they've been known to catch poodles.
There are Old World Vultures and New World Vultures. They are distinguished by their food-seeking abilities; sight and smell respectively. North America has the New World variety, although the Old World ones sound scarier and a little Transylvania-esque.
The bald head is a matter of hygiene, you see, dipping your head into the bloody bowels of a deceased deer can be messy. Feathers would make it worse, so they sit in the sun until the dried blood flakes and falls off.
