Buzzards have to be the ugliest birds created.
Yet, they must have the best senses of any creature alive. As soon as an animal in the wild dies, those repulsive fowl show up to scavenge the carcass, alternately circling in flight with their wings held at a V-angle high in the sky, visible for miles around.
The big, black, red-headed birds are in cahoots with coyotes, too. Within minutes after buzzards arrive, coyotes are there as well, looking for their fair share of the road-kill, lifeless farm animal or deceased wildlife.
Likewise, buzzards’ aerial shows are warning to us that livestock may have departed. If a critter is missing, first place to look is where those hideous things are flying.
Our first recollection of buzzards was nearly five decades ago, when at a Cub Scout meeting, our scoutmaster shot at the soaring birds with a 22-rifle. Apparently, something had died nearby. None of predators were hit, but shooting into the air with a rifle was pretty dangerous, now that we look back at it as an adult.
Oops, we’re wrong. What we’ve always called buzzards, and many others do, too, are really Turkey Vultures, scientifically part of the family of raptors, or birds of prey, according to a bit of investigating. Well, they vaguely resemble a young wild turkey in size and color, so that’s an appropriate name for them.
Freshly killed, and even sun-ripened, food is located by smell. Supposedly, bird watchers call the hooked-beaked Turkey Vultures “TVs,” so squashed animals then become “TV dinners.” Their nests are located on the ground in rocky alcoves, hollow trees and abandoned farm buildings, in case there was a question.
While the homely-looking things are not appreciated by most, they’re said to be crucial to the health of the prairie. Yet, when the five-pound, 25-inch long birds with a 65-inch wingspread come to town, it’s always a community effort to get rid of them. Guns, blasters, whistles and other gizmos are brought out to scare the ugly, messy pests.
Always have they been downgraded as noted in Deuteronomy 13:11: “You may eat any ritually clean bird. There are exceptions, so don’t eat vulture or the buzzard family.”
Yet, they join us in reprieve as indicated in Isaiah 43:16: “This is what God says, Be alert, and be present. I’m making a road through the desert, rivers in the badlands. Wild animals will say thank you —the coyotes and the buzzards—because I provided water in the desert, rivers through the sun-baked earth, drinking water for the people I chose.”
+++ALLELUIA+++