![\"\"](\"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Black-vulture-across-N-fence-9-8-2021.jpg\")
<\/p>\nSober, serious, professionally dressed in black and textured gray, the undertakers spend their off hours sitting around in trees or on fenceposts–or, depending on space availability, on cellphone towers.\u00a0 Black blots with wrinkled gray necks and matte gray heads, dark eyes and large unpleasantly suggestive beaks.\u00a0 Sometimes they soar aloft, first observing from their cousins, the turkey vultures, where there may be thermals to make flight easier.\u00a0 Their own flight, so much superior to ours (for which of us can hang onto a fence by our toes and then glide across a pasture to a stock tank for a drink?)\u00a0 is derided by some ornithologists as “clumsy”.\u00a0\u00a0 Admittedly, their takeoffs and landings, especially from trees in leaf, or from that fence or the ground, often have an amateurish look, but once high enough to glide, they’re graceful enough, and their courting flights (true of the Black and the Turkey vultures both) showing amazing skill.<\/p>\n
To fully appreciate the undertakers, walk up on a pair sitting on adjacent fenceposts.\u00a0\u00a0 They will look at you, with solemn expressions…the world is full of woe, things are going badly…and by the way, are you dead yet?\u00a0 No?\u00a0 Then what are you doing here?\u00a0 Please respect the solemnity and silence of this place, unless you’re a client, in which case fall down and don’t move while we go to work on your carcass.\u00a0 If you persist in standing there alive and breathing–and disrespectfully speak to them–they shift from foot to foot, look at each other, look back at you, and shuffle again.\u00a0 This is a situation for which they are not prepared.\u00a0 She’s not dead yet.\u00a0 We can’t…we can’t…do our job…she’s still THERE.\u00a0 Making sounds.\u00a0\u00a0 Maybe she brought us a dead thing to take care of?\u00a0 No…her hands are empty.<\/p>\n
With a ruffling of feathers, one of them will stand up a bit taller (not very), ruffle some feathers, and then, reluctantly, with loud “flup-flup” sounds, struggle into the air and gain just enough height to fly a short distance.\u00a0\u00a0 If it lands in a tree or some brush, there were be a struggle…cracking twigs, thrashing leaves.\u00a0 The one that doesn’t fly will look at you reproachfully.\u00a0 See What You Did?\u00a0 Why Don’t You Die?\u00a0 Eventually, if you continue to stare rudely or offer to come closer, this one too will heave itself into the air with as much drama as possible.\u00a0\u00a0 It’s unfair.\u00a0 It’s undignified.\u00a0 Why should a respectable undertaker bird have to take flight at This Time of Day, This Season of the Year, This Moment?\u00a0\u00a0 Sometimes one of them will slowly glide until it comes to ground\u00a0 and then waddle on, glancing back now and then to see if you’re following.\u00a0\u00a0 Killdeer play the part of “Follow me, follow me, I’m nearly dead” much better than the undertakers, who have a slightly (!) risible sense of dignity (waddle, waddle.)\u00a0\u00a0 The female killdeer staggers, drags a wing, zigs and zags, gives little agonized peeps…until she’s led you far enough away from her very vulnerable eggs and then shoots into the air with ineffable grace.\u00a0 But the undertaker who’s undertaken to be the lure…merely waddles slowly along, soundless and offering no drama other than a large, slow, black bird rocking from hip to hip, a little clumsily.\u00a0\u00a0 If you follow too fast, and try to catch one (Don’t, is my priceless recommendation.\u00a0 You do not want to catch a Black Vulture.\u00a0 You would regret it if you did)\u00a0 it will merely flup-flup-flup faster until it’s gliding again, and then more until it’s higher than your head, and if you really scare it you’ll get a load of vulture poop, corrosive and stinking.<\/p>\n
If you have either the Turkey or the Black Vulture around, one fun game to play with them is to find a place where you can lie down on the ground (ground not inhabited by fire ants or rattlesnakes) and when there are vultures (either kind) over head, fall down.\u00a0\u00a0 Or just lie down.\u00a0\u00a0 And don’t move until you can *hear* the wings.\u00a0 Then open your eyes and move.\u00a0\u00a0 Slow or fast, either will do.\u00a0\u00a0 Speaking to them can be fun.\u00a0\u00a0 Not yet, you guys!\u00a0\u00a0 Fooled you!\u00a0 Something of that sort.\u00a0 Shouting “aten’t dead yet”\u00a0 in a Granny Weatherwax sort of voice\u00a0 is fine, too.\u00a0 The vultures around here are always on the lookout for work, and will swoop low if you’re just sitting still….but lying still brings them right over you.\u00a0\u00a0 Depending on the species, the withdrawal of the disappointed undertaker will be flup-flup-flup or “creeeak!” of a turkey vulture’s wing (OK, they ARE more graceful most of the time, merely rearranging a few feathers to begin gaining altitude again. )<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Emerging from a back room, Undertaker asks “May I help you?\u00a0 Are you dead yet?”\u00a0 Partner was there but invisible in the leaves<\/p>\n
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![\"\"](\"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Black-vulture-moved-to-post-9-8-2021.jpg\")
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Upon noticing you’re alive, Undertaker moves to a post, preparing to depart.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Black-vulture-about-2-fly-9-8-2021.jpg\")
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Slightly lifting the wings (not yet spreading them) Undertaker decides to fly away from home since human is Still There.\u00a0 It’s too bad I needed to approach them from down-sun, so the black\/gray contrast doesn’t show very well.\u00a0 The farther out they stick their heads, the more gray shows.\u00a0 I’ll try to get a shot of them close enough to show the eyes as well, with better lighting.<\/p>\n
These images were taken September 8, on the north fence trail.\u00a0 The second bird was barely visible still hidden in the bush.\u00a0\u00a0 Unpictured is the Turkey Vulture, who noticed the disturbance going on here and swooped down to see if anyone was dead.\u00a0 Undertakers have a single-minded approach to all situations: did someone die?\u00a0 Is there work for us?<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sober, serious, professionally dressed in black and textured gray, the undertakers spend their off hours sitting around in trees or on fenceposts–or, depending on space availability, on cellphone towers.\u00a0 Black blots with wrinkled gray necks and matte gray heads, dark eyes and large unpleasantly suggestive beaks.\u00a0 Sometimes they soar aloft, first observing from their cousins, Read More…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50,16],"tags":[17],"class_list":["post-857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-80-acres","category-life-beyond-writing","tag-life-beyond-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/857"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=857"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/857\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":864,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/857\/revisions\/864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}