I saw a Turkey Vulture on Halloween. I don’t know if it was heading south. Vultures will hang around our area well into winter, at least that’s been my observation. Migration, for a lot of birds these days—herons, for example—doesn’t seem to be the hard-wired obligation it once was. I watched the vulture wheeling around up there and thought of a deceased writer who said he’d like to come back as one of these birds. The writer was Ed Abbey. He wrote the somewhat famous “Desert Solitaire” and other books that are fun because the guy was a curmudgeon. (Sounds like a kind of duck, you know? Curmudgeon). And he had a way of appreciating wild things. For example, he didn’t mind sharing his trailer with a rattlesnake when he lived in the desert. Many people would say they’d want to come back as something more glamorous than a bald, carrion-eating bird. But when you think about it, the Turkey Vulture has a good life. It soars on wide wings all day. It sees well, and when it finds something to eat, it doesn’t have to inflict panic or pain; the prey’s already dead. The vulture just plunges in, digests with pleasure and helps clean up the place. Then it’s another day in the sky, above it all, enjoying the scenery. If a Turkey Vulture ever thought of re-incarnation I doubt he’d want to come back as a writer. I think he’d want to come back as another vulture. Keep a good thing going. There are a lot of Turkey Vultures, and I see one or two every week. If I’m driving I slide my sunroof open so I can look up at the bird. I think: is that the ghost of Abbey up there? I may not remember everything the guy wrote, but I can’t forget his choice of re-incarnation.
