Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Turkey buzzards, yuck!


Our deer doe saga continues.  We don't know a lot of details.  We know only what we see, and so far that hasn't connected many dots.  Instead, the story becomes more mysterious.

Bill took a walk through the woods, water and all, a couple of days ago.  He saw no sign of Mother Deer or of her potential baby.  Neither of us had seen her for a couple of days, except possibly Sunday.

I was mowing the front lawn when I looked up and saw what may have been our dear doe standing in the corner of the north lawn near the road, frozen like a statue and staring back at me.  I made a couple more rounds with my mowing while she continued to watch me.  Then, she decided the best escape route at that time was down the road. 

So, she galloped south.  I did not see her again until yesterday morning.

Actually, Heather spotted her as we walked down the lane.  She was standing in the hayfield near the Ponderosa tree,  staring at us.  She watched as I brought all three horses to the pasture.  Eventually, she disappeared for a while.

Later, I saw horses with heads up eyeing something near their fence.  It was the doe.  She was wandering in a small area halfway out into the hayfield and fairly close to the horses' fenceline.  She stared at them.  They ran around, snorted and stared back.

I saw this happen a couple of times yesterday.  She would be visible one minute, nowhere to be seen the next.  But she always came back to that area.  So, I figured she must have had her baby out there in the deep grass.

An ominous sign started appearing in mid-afternoon.  Occasionally, I would see what looked like over-sized crows flying from the big trees over the area, swooping down and flying off.  This happened in several intervals through the early evening hours.

The more I studied the individual birds making those passes the more I thought they might even be eagles, but they were not the right coloring.  Bill suggested maybe hawks.  I said they looked mighty big to be a hawk.

Eventually, my curiosity got the best of me.  I locked the dogs inside and walked out to the pasture where the horses were still eating.  I could see one of the big birds sitting on a tree limb at the edge of the woods watching me.

As I got closer, I spotted another and then another.  Five of them all together, and these were no crows, hawks or eagles.  The telltale red snots gave their cover away:  turkey buzzards.  I believe they must be the ugliest, most creepy birds known to man.  

They sat there with the tree limbs bouncing and swaying beneath them from the sheer weight of their bodies.  As I reached about the halfway point through the pasture and started looking for high spots where I could keep my feet out of standing water, the creatures took off.  

One by one, the monster-like birds left their tree limbs and soared spookily through the air to the west.

I walked part-way out into the chest-deep and thick hay, finding no sign of whatever had drawn them there, for those overhead reconnaissance missions.  Bill had suggested earlier that possibly they came to feed on the after birth.  I'm suspecting that it could have been much worse to draw a squadron of five.  

I can't imagine after-birth from a doe offering too much of a meal for that many huge birds.  

So, this morning, the mystery continues.  We haven't seen the turkey buzzards since last night.  We may have seen our doe this morning,  wandering through the front yard headed toward Gary Finney's.  Hard to tell cuz they do look a lot alike, but I'm guessing that was she.

And, at this point, only she knows the whole story, so I'll end it here, hoping to add some more chapters, and really hoping for a happier ending than what we're quietly surmising this morning.  

Stay tuned, and GO USA Soccer Team.  The match has begun!

1 comment:

JanisKPC said...

How timely, your talk of those scary monster looking turkey buzzards. I was just chatting with a friend this morning about those birds and the image of them sitting and dining on a road kill deer are stuck in my head forever.
I wonder if you saw my photo of the killdeer bird on FB and her four eggs in the "nest" (they don't seem to need any sticks or anything)? I was sad to have missed seeing all the chicks. They hatched and were gone in less than 24 hours.
So anxious to hear about your doe and the fawn and hope nature gives this story a happy ending.