leftovers

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I view myself lucky.

As part of my job at the nature center, I get to help care for a turkey vulture.

She was hit by a truck in North Carolina and made her way to the American Eagle Foundation in Pigeon Forge for rehab. It took awhile. She eventually recovered from her injuries but had become completely imprinted on her human caregivers. That's where we come into the picture. She was moved to Ijams and we'll care for her the rest of her life.

I've worked with injured owls and hawks for years, but never a turkey vulture. What a personality. The first thing we noticed is that she's far more inquisitive than the other birds. An owl can (and does) sit on a perch for hours watching the world pass but the vulture gets bored. She wants something to explore, something to ponder.

As a rule we feed her dead mice, which she gobbles down quickly. And then she’s bored again. So recently, our wildlife biologist gave her the remains of a turkey carcass. (No gravy. No dressing. No yams. That would have been wasted on her.)

Oh, was she thrilled with the leftovers. Long lost memories stirred inside her knubby little noggin'. She walked around it, looking at it this way and that, picking a morsel from here and a morsel from there. It entertained her for hours.

Now she routinely gets such treats. It's the least we can do.

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