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Carrion Luggage
Carrion Luggage
![Traveling Vulture [#2336297]
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Native to the Americas, the turkey vulture (Cathartes aura) travels widely in search of sustenance. While usually foraging alone, it relies on other individuals of its species for companionship and mutual protection. Sometimes misunderstood, sometimes feared, sometimes shunned, it nevertheless performs an important role in the ecosystem.
This scavenger bird is a marvel of efficiency. Rather than expend energy flapping its wings, it instead locates uplifting columns of air, and spirals within them in order to glide to greater heights. This behavior has been mistaken for opportunism, interpreted as if it is circling doomed terrestrial animals destined to be its next meal. In truth, the vulture takes advantage of these thermals to gain the altitude needed glide longer distances, flying not out of necessity, but for the joy of it.
It also avoids the exertion necessary to capture live prey, preferring instead to feast upon that which is already dead. In this behavior, it resembles many humans.
It is not what most of us would consider to be a pretty bird. While its habits are often off-putting, or even disgusting, to members of more fastidious species, the turkey vulture helps to keep the environment from being clogged with detritus. Hence its Latin binomial, which translates to English as "golden purifier."
I rarely know where the winds will take me next, or what I might find there. The journey is the destination.
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Made it back home, but I'm entirely too worn-out to deal with one of my usual links right now.
I'll just say this: last night after sunset, some lightning storms blew through the beach. I had a room with a balcony, so I slid out there and sat down to watch the show. Nothing like having an unobstructed view all the way to the edge of the planet
Yes, of course I'm joking |
while Zeus gets busy smiting all the fish.
Was it smart for me to sit on an open balcony on an upper floor of a hotel during a lightning storm? No. Was I frightened? No. Would I do it again? Hell, yes. Some things are worth the risk, and that's one of them.
So that's my short blog entry for today. It'll probably be back to normal tomorrow. |
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