Turkey Buzzards a.k.a Flesh Eaters

I’ve been trying to dig up a reason to write about a flock of turkey buzzards – giant birds that feed on carcasses – roosting in a patch of trees on the east side of the house for months now. Autumn provides the perfect opportunity. If there is any time of year to pay homage to creatures that eat dead flesh, it’s October, the bewitching time of year.

Turkey buzzards are giant mostly black birds with prominent red beaks and zero sophistication. On average they weigh from four to six pounds, but walk with an ungainly waddle. Quiet birds, they lack larynxes and can only hiss to warn their enemies to stay clear of their rotting nourishment. But in the air, their awkward walk and awful voice don’t matter. A thousand feet above our heads they gracefully glide, using thermals to float, barely batting their wings, which can spread seventy-two inches across. They look almost prehistoric.

Since they’ve moved next door, I’ve been observing their patterns and learned that the buzzards rise late, waiting for first light before fluttering a wing. A few days ago, on a particularly gloomy morning, layered clouds rushing past in a dizzying pace propelled by a cold front sweeping across the Midwest, a flock of thirty turkey buzzards, a.k.a flesh-eaters rose in one black shadow of gleaming wings from their perches on the limbs, where they roost two to three on a branch. It only took a few flaps of their gargantuan wings before they were high enough to tap into the thermal’s swirling current and glide over Robertson County, searching for gaseous decaying fumes.

Once the giant birds leave my vision, I won’t see them again until evening, when the flock returns, arriving one by one, but not as a giant wave, like in the morning. As they land, their wings swoosh against the limbs and make a dramatic sound, like something out of a Stephen King novel.

Believe me, I understand people’s initial disgust to this flesh-eating bird. I had the same reaction a decade ago, when I was driving past the operating antebellum farm called Wessyington Plantation; I saw several vultures sitting between a white cow and her calf. At first glance, I thought how charming. But then I got closer, realizing the mother was dead and the turkey buzzards were waiting for her body to reach the perfect degree of decay before chowing down, all while the oblivious calf waited for her mother to get up.

It took a long time to erase that image from my mind, particularly because as the days passed the birds devoured as much of the cow as possible before a farmer hauled it away.

Luckily, this picture had paled and my opinion had already swayed by the time the buzzards roosted next door. What changed my mind was years of watching and smelling dead wildlife decay on farms, roads or woods versus watching them become nutrients. Until I moved to the rural south, I had never smelled the stench of decaying flesh, not really, and I can report that the stink is thick enough to leave an aftertaste, even if I hold my breath.

Inevitably, Cedar Hill, a rural place, has a wealth of dead things, a turkey buzzard’s dream feast: dogs, cats, squirrels, rabbits, raccoons, skunks, opossums, chickens, cattle and often deer (that have been shot but never tracked, signaling a lazy hunter.) I’ve even witnessed buzzards eating one their own that got too brave stealing road kill and ended up pancaked by a logging truck.

If it weren’t for these hard-working vultures, Robertson County would reek of decay, particularly in the summer, when the heat index reaches 100 degrees Fahrenheit with ninety percent humidity.

But these giant, waddling birds take care of the waste, cleaning it up, making it possible to smell the fall’s spicy burning tobacco and the spring’s sweet honeysuckle.

So, in honor of the bewitching month, I’d like to bestow the honor of the hardest working ghouls in Middle Tennessee to the turkey buzzards, the equivalent of the Robertson County Highway Department.