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More Vultures

‍Saturday was Vulture Awareness Day. Perhaps you missed the memo. For future reference, this falls on the first Saturday of September, every year. Along the base of the Southern Blue Ridge Escarpment, we are blessed with two species of vultures. They are often seen together, black and turkey, cleaning up the morning roadkill. Black vultures appear to wear a chainmail coif on their wrinkled, featherless heads, and the equally bald head of a turkey vulture—bless its heart—is a series of nested red wrinkles. But looks aren’t everything! A vulture can pass the most disease-riddled meal through its body, and out the other end it comes, a disease-free whitewash flowing down the bird’s legs to cool them on hot summer days. Oh, and you think you’re tougher than a bird? Mess with a vulture, and it just might projectile vomit that roadkill right onto you. What’s not to love? ~K