Friday, January 15, 2010

Vulture-led Field Trip


A dead gull, species indeterminant. Now imagine your backyard full of these - yeesh!


This is a dream my brother Jon had a few days ago... It began with him observing a friend, who's in a band, get in to an argument with a member of a different band. The row was regarding who's band is better. The scene then skipped to him overlooking the backyard, from the bathroom (from the second floor of our parents' house). Surprise! Jon then witnessed scads of gulls in the backyard, grounded, on their backs - "taxidermy dead". Upon going downstairs, he noticed the wall to the outside wasn't there. Newspapers were strewn around the yard burning quickly. They all vanished by the time he arrived at ground level.

Upon reaching the stair landing a gigantic, "linebacker-sized", grayish-white vulture swooped down and landed in the backyard. (The closest real-world species, is the Cape Vulture.) It began to peck at the remains of the dead gulls. After scavenging, the vulture stood up and flew away. It flew left, up the gentle slope of the hill they live on, around the neighborhood water tower a few hundred yards away, then to the south out of sight. While the vulture was still visible it appeared to attack more gulls that appeare in the air, alive. After the vulture departed the gulls drifted to circle over the backyard.




Cape Vulture (Gyps coprotheres)
Image online here


The friend, from the argument, reappeared - with binoculars and ready for birding. Others people are there now too; binos-at-the-ready. My bro' joined them as they walked through the backyard toward the forest beyond. The vulture flew back, and landed close to the birders. The vulture wore khakis - looking more like a person in a vulture suit. He was holding binoculars with human hands. Then he began to lead the field trip, spotting and pointing out birds. "Vulture-man" explained the reason he was eating the gulls was because he, in fact, is a vulture. (pay no attention to vocal ability, hands, and chinos?!?)

The last part of the dream my brother found a tiny bird on the ground. It appeared a nestling, all white and downy. He could not tell if it was alive because it sat so still.

1 comment:

dguzman said...

Did you see the article in a recent Birdwatcher's Digest in which the writer thought about starting a Dream-birding lifelist? I just chuckled and thought, "this guy's way behind the times!"

 

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