So, remember how I waxed lyrical about the beauty and majesty of eagles soaring overhead? Well, it seems I was mistaken. There are actually eagles along the coast, but here at our place it turns out that those majestic soarers are, um… turkey vultures.
“The turkey vultures soaring majestically overhead” just doesn’t have the same ring to it.
Granted, they’re almost as big as an eagle, with a nearly-six-foot wingspan. But my binoculars reveal the truth: Turkey vultures are constructed like some particularly tasteless cosmic joke. From the shoulders down they’re beautiful, with powerful wings frosted white on the undersides… but nature grafted on the ugliest excuse for a head and neck I’ve ever seen.
It’s not too noticeable when they’re soaring, which is probably why they do it so often. But when they’re perched in a tree, it looks as though somebody did a really bad Photoshop merge between an eagle and an inflamed penis.
There’s the eagle’s body and beak, but in between there’s this scrawny angry-red fleshy thing. Whenever I peer at a turkey vulture through binoculars, I worry that I’m going to get arrested for voyeurism.
I’m pretty sure the turkey vulture is a victim of evolution’s practical joke; but I can’t help thinking that the cosmic comedians have been taking a dig at me, too.
First of all there’s the unsettling realization that eight large carrion-eaters have been circling our property for weeks, apparently waiting for me to keel over in the garden and achieve the optimum degree of putrefaction to become their dinner.
But the main thing that bothers me is that all this time I’ve been admiring what I thought was a noble scion of the sky, and it turns out I’ve only been ogling a dickhead.
There’s probably a lesson in there somewhere…
Book 14 update: I’m on Chapter 18 and rollin’! Things are getting complicated for Aydan…
Author Diane Henders 
Look at it this way…All God’s creatures are beutiful. Right?
When I worked at our Corporate HQ in Troy, MI there were a pair of Turkey Vultures that would soar through the sky around our building almost every afternoon for a few months. I think they were nesting somewhere close by. They looked rather awesome as long as you didn’t get a close look at them.
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You’re right, they’re spectacular when they’re soaring! I can just enjoy them up in the sky without looking too closely through the binoculars. 🙂
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Love the description and for a visual thinker like me….what a vision you have painted!!! I was visualizing another part of the anatomy in your description of the neck…..sometimes being a visual thinker carries it’s burdens….lol
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LOL! Yes, it certainly does. And this is one of those situations where after your mind goes there even once, it can never un-see the mental image! 🙂
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Exactly!!
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The tricks our eyes play on us is just mean. I too have mistaken a turkey vulture for an eagle while it was in flight and you’re right about how disappointing the truth of that was. Lol! On the other hand I will swear til my dying breath that there is a long extinct condor flying around my uncles farm here in the central US! Hahaha! The wingspan covered his pond which is about 50 ft wide. WT….?!? I swear I don’t do drugs, I wasn’t drunk, and I’m not given to believing alien abductions are an ongoing issue, but I can’t explain that bird. It’s probably out there hanging with Sasquatch 😂😂.
Love your blog!
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Thanks, Michelle! Wow, that’s SOME bird! Lucky it didn’t have the same *ahem* anatomical attributes as the turkey vulture – I’m thinking that would be enough to give anybody nightmares.
But hey, who’s to say it’s not part of the sasquatches’ secret cabal? Maybe they transport the french fries by air instead of by truck… 😉
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The way your thought process wanders (or ebbs & flows) I can’t wait to see what kind of mischief (or salvation) Aydan & company can get into or out of. Keep up the good work.
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Thanks, drae! It’s a little strange inside my mind, but at least I’m never bored. 😉
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Well maybe they are there cheering you on rather than waiting to eat you. Imagine them with little Pom poms on the end of their wings. You’ll have the last laugh.
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Bahahaha!!! I’m laughing now! (And the turkey vultures seem to have moved on. Hmmm…)
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Be careful out there, Diane!
Things like this just make me wonder about Mother Nature …
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It’s easy to understand why most critters are designed the way they are, and the turkey vulture is no exception – functionally, it’s perfectly designed for what it does. But its head/neck shape and coloration is like taking a gorgeous Ferrari, attaching the hood of a Volkswagen Beetle, and then painting it with a paint roller in slime-green interior latex. The car will still go fast and work perfectly, but it just looks SO WRONG!
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That is strange. I kept checking and not till I sent second message did first one come up. I think I dislike technology at times.
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I know what you mean! I wish I could figure out why this system eats comments entirely sometimes and sometimes it just holds onto them for a few minutes before displaying them. It’s one of the great mysteries of the internet, I guess!
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I think you are completely nuts and I love it. Regular turkeys are ugly also but make a great Thanksgiving dinner. what an image to sit here and snicker over. not to worry they probable see a dead rodent or snake. Hopefully.
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Yep, I’m hoping it’s not me they’re smelling. But maybe I’ll take a shower, just in case.
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As I have said before you are certifiable but I love it. What an image to sit here and snicker over. Regular turkey heads are ugly also but they sure do taste good at Thanksgiving. I don’t have a clue why they hover and soar but I have seen them here also a murder of crows and one lone eagle. But I figure there is something dead in woods behind house. So I don’t think they are waiting for you. And like the guy, I am sitting here trying to hurry #14 along. have a great day, barbara
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Thanks, Barbara! I’m hoping it’s just something dead in the woods, too; although if it takes eight of them to clean it up, maybe I don’t want to know for sure.
I think turkey necks are tasty, too; but after I found out that medieval women sometimes used them for um… alternate purposes (https://blog.dianehenders.com/2016/01/27/that-turkey-neck-seems-glad-to-see-me/) I can’t help snickering when I eat one!
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another wonderful image. Yukk!!!!!
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Yeah, that was a bit of trivia I really didn’t need to know. So of course I shared it with all my blog readers! 😉
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Went to that blog and thought I would fall off my chair. which would be bad cause I probably would just lay there giggling till hubby got home and pulled me back up to chair.
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I glad you got a laugh! (And glad no first aid was required.) 😀
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Umm, check your pulse and see a doctor soon.
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… or a coroner…?
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No need for a coroner – that’s why the vultures are there, to keep things tidy… 😉
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Ah, right. Although Hubby might have some ‘splainin’ to do if the bleached bones catch somebody’s eye later on.
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Gad, that’d make a crappy epitaph! Here lies ______________, lifelong researcher of inflamed penises and ogler of dickheads. That, too, lacks any correlation with semantic poetry. Lifelong observer of majestic eagles. Yep, that works. The buzzard thing? Nope, not so much.
Buzzards are just a bad idea.
And what the heck are they doing circling your house?? Who knows? Maybe they found Jimmy Hoffa…
Chapter 18? You tho rock, thithta!
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Thankth! I’m rockin’ right along now – had an excellent writing day yesterday and hoping for another tomorrow.
As far as the epitaph goes, well… at least it would be interesting. That’s the kind of thing that makes people go, “Wait, WHAT?!?” And I’m not sure why the vultures decided to circle our house, but these days I check the sky before I go out, and I never wear my Eau de Carrion perfume anymore. 😉
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I’ve never seen one so I’ll take your word for it. I’ve never really trusted anything with wings.
Another thing I don’t trust is solicitors as I’m still no closer to moving its getting beyond a joke. Still I’m having a blast sorting stuff out and trying to throw things away
Post made me giggle and not much has recently so thank you.
Your making book 14 sound fab I can’t wait for you to finish it.
Giggles how about we see who gets there first you or my solicitor in giving me a date for the move, and me actually getting the keys
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Oh, no, you’re STILL waiting?!? Grrrr! I hope things come together for you soon.
And I’m chuckling at your “never really trusted anything with wings”. Seems like a healthy caution to me. 😉
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