The Observation Deck

I remember as a kid going out to Hinkley, Ohio for "Buzzard Day." The entire city would get
worked up with pancake breakfasts, parades, sales in town, all celebrating the return of
Buzzards that had been coming in since the 40s. Some day there would be a thousand
people in Metro Parks to see maybe one, maybe two "buzzards."



Today at one point I counted seventeen Turkey Vultures aka Buzzards flying along the rim
of the Emerald Canyon. SEVENTEEN! Damn, might be time for Buzzard Week in Lakewood.

Perhaps a bar crawl down Detroit Ave. going bar to bar only drinking drinks that were left
on tables or bars. Extra point for drinks with cigarettes in them.


They are massive fun birds to watch, they can fly for hours with barely moving their
wings. In late afternoon they ride the thermals off the sheer cliffs of the Emerald Canyon,
and will zoom past your car like some devil bird!

Enjoy







.

We saw them all the way from the lagoons to your house this evening. Quite a few of them.

Great pictures!!

My husband and I saw them as well driving home down Riverside this evening.

The story of Northern Ohio's vultures is an interesting one, and it began on Christmas Eve, 1818, with an adventure called "The Great Hinckley Hunt".

Farmers from three Ohio counties-Cuyahoga, Summit, and Medina, were getting tired of the area's abundant wildlife eating into their livelihood. In addition, the area's equally abundant wolves and bears caused a continual sense of unease. Unlike Ohio's former Native American populations, who lived in relative peace with the existing ecosystem, the solution of the European immigrant population seemed to have been to eliminate whatever problem came in their way, whether human or animal. Ohio even had a wolf scalp bounty law that would pay a settler for a wolf scalp, but only if the ears were intact. Having decimated the Native American population a few years before, it seemed only natural for the settlers to go after all of those bothersome animals.

Anyway, on 24 December, 1818, farmers and settlers basically formed a huge square of about 20 miles, and moved towards the center, killing every animal they could find. Deer, bear, wolf, you -name-it. Eventually they piled most of the carcasses in Hinckley Township, and it was there that the buzzards began to gather. The settlers, many of whom being in an alcoholic haze, then drifted back to their homes and farms.

Perhaps it should be noted too that, back then, Christmas was not as universally celebrated among Christians as it is today. Back then, Christmas was generally considered to be a Catholic holiday. In any case, it was certainly not celebrated by the animals that fell under some of the same clubs and guns that had likely been used on many of the Native Americans, during the time of the fallen timbers.

In any case, that year, a sumptuous Christmas Day dinner was had by hundreds of gathering turkey vultures whose offspring continue to return to Northern Ohio annually; perpetually reminding those who seek wisdom... of what was lost here on Christmas...and at other times, all those years ago.

All just some facts here, mixed in with some of my own opinionated thoughts, of course. At least we can still express opinions.....can't we?

Back to the banjo...