July 6th - Vultures

Greetings! Thought I’d start out by blowing all credibility. Alice Cooper is into golf, well something I’ve been doing a lot recently while sitting at the dining table penning lyrics, is the very rock and roll activity of bird watching. Don’t laugh – I’m serious. My dentist recently got me inspired, since he now has a huge bird feeder outside his window, right in view of the patients chair. Believe me, this works as a great distraction while you are undergoing root canal excavation! The neat thing is that there’s a chart on the wall so that you can identify the feathered fellows.

So, I buy a couple of these feeders from my local hardware store. They are expensive, on account of the fact that the bird perch, (which is on the bottom and encircles the cylindrical bit that holds the seeds) is motorized. That is to say, it is squirrel proof …. right…. Squirrels, a big problem for ‘twitchers’. That’s the British term for birdwatchers. Anyway, when this system is working well, after the pesky rodents have worked their way to the seed container, they get to the perch, only to be flung off harmlessly by the motorized circular motion of the thing itself. Great entertainment.

Here in rural Connecticut, in the north east of these great United States, we get beautiful red cardinals, woodpeckers, (both the red bellied and hairy woodpecker) . Once in a while I’ll get to see the mighty, great piliated woodpecker, which measures about 18 inches – you know ‘woody’. He won’t come to the feeder but you’ll certainly hear him working away in the woods. There are blue jays, house finches and yellow finches. Sometimes, when we are sitting on the back porch, we’ll see a blue bird – these are rare but when you see one it’s a thrill. They are beautiful. It makes your day.

Well, it turns out that on a recent road trip, I call in on webmaster supremo and marshall of our little plot of cyberspace, Leon Tsilis. Apart from his recent activities restoring his old family mansion near Chevy Chase, it turns out that HE’s got the bird watching bug too. We’re sitting on his back porch having a cup of coffee and I’m seeing black headed cowbirds, which don’t come around my joint. There are loads of sparrows too. Hey did you know that sparrows, that ubiquitous British bird, are declining at an alarming rate over in Blighty? People are blaming the destruction of the hedgerows and mechanized farming, insecticides. Truth is, I’m not sure the ‘powers that be’ have a real reason.

Anyway, back to Connecticut, this bird watching thing reached a climax last week. Our house is located high up, looking down over a beautiful tree filled valley. We see a lot of hawks, crows, sometimes an eagle but also a goodly number of turkey vultures (aka buzzards). These ugly scavengers are always wheeling around on the thermals looking for road - kill or the occasional dead deer. Really, they are doing a good clean – up job of the roads and countryside. Anyway, I’m sitting outside with the ever -present cup of coffee, eating some scrambled eggs, when I see this turkey vulture, and please remember, they have a wingspan of some 5 or 6 feet! It starts to make a bee line straight for me, flapping it’s wings, from about 200 yards away. It’s coming straight at me, I’m calmly continuing to munch away, not quite believing this, and it’s not stopping. 8 seconds later it’s speeding down on me with evil intent, just about 1 second away from gouging me with it’s talons!. Only at the very last point of it’s determined flight trajectory, does it veer away, narrowly missing the side of the house. I see it’s ugly red head and feel and hear the wind from it’s wings. I was in shock and awe. Was it a sign, did it smell the scrambled eggs from way out in the valley, is it’s eyesight really that good? Respect.

A couple of days later, the pool guy tells me of a similar story. He was at a barbeque at a friend’s house. A turkey vulture spotted the hot dog in his hand and nearly took his fingers off as it swooped down, grabbling the dog in it’s beak! They are sneaky, these buzzards. Reminds me of the time we were on stage in Calcutta, India. It’s brutally hot, I look up into the sky during the song Phoenix and there are 3 serious vultures circling the stage. Was this also a sign? Were they waiting for us to expire right there on the stage, due to all the heat and pollution? You can find dead animals and sadly, even people in the streets, anywhere in Calcutta, so I guess they are constantly on the look out. Maybe, with their acute sense of smell, these vultures just thought we smelled bad! Street funerals are common place throughout India and I’ve witnessed a couple. Maybe this vulture thing is a sign of the future, as the USA slips further into becoming a 3rd world country….just joking folks, but your mind can wonder after one of these close encounters of the raptor kind.

By the way… ever noticed how every phone call selling you something, or handling your banking needs emanates from India these days? But that’s another story……