Animal, Nature, and Travel: Tale of the Free Vulture

If a wild vulture feasting on roadkill could talk, what would it say? As a flight of fancy, conservation seemed to be this bird’s focus.

If this Vulture could talk, what do you think it would say?

Introduction: If you came across this particular vulture feasting on some roadkill in the middle of the road in Mosheim, Tennessee, what do you think it would say?

FYI - This was something I wrote back in 2011.

Nature's Notes: Tale of the Free Vulture

This is what I imagined the free vulture would say, if he had the ability to talk.

Conservation. That is what you would hear me say. Or perhaps, I will use the famous saying of "Waste not. Want not." I am a bird of prey who does not let anything go to waste. I am a Free Vulture - Free with a capital F. Free. Unlike those vultures who have gone and gotten themselves injured or captured or killed. I am free and glory in that freedom.

I am not meaning to sound conceited or crass. It is just that I celebrate each day that I am a free bird. You personally may not find me beautiful or comely to look upon. That matters not. For I find many reasons to celebrate being me. I am free. I can glide. I can soar. I help to keep Mother Earth free of road kill. I help keep Mother Earth clean. Conservation is the key.

What do I mean by conservation? I mean that you find ways to make use of the resources you already have on hand. Instead of want, want, want, need, need, need. You glory in the fact that the great Father and Mother of us all provides for our every need. All you have to do is use your eyes to look and really see what you already have available to you right now.

I woke up this morning and gloried in the fact that I had a comforting shelter to lay my head. I looked around and saw that the sun was shining. Mother Nature was busy doing her thing by replenishing the Earth of everything green and new and fresh. After all, it is getting closer to being the tail end of winter - the end of February, I hear you say.

I realize that I am hungry. No worries. I take to the wind and glide and soar and use my eyes to gaze upon the land. Aha! What do I see? I see some road kill of some kind. Rather than make one of you humans to have to rid the road of this poor animal, I will avail myself of my Conservation-Free-Bird privileges and volunteer to do the honors for you.

I settle down upon the road. When a car goes by, I take to the air, fly a little, soar around in a circle, and then come back to land upon the road. You were kind enough to stop your car and take a picture of me through your front windshield. I gazed at you out of the corner of my eye while you gazed upon me with delight. It was a stand-off. Then another car drove up from the opposite direction. Fair thee well! Have a gliding kind of day yourself as I continue on with my feasting.

Oh, Brother Animal. I say my own form of grace. Go back to the Good Father and Mother who made us all. Take your animal spirit off to Animal Heaven while I carry on with my conservation-task so that nothing is wasted and every resource is well-utilized.

I hear you chant in your head those well-formed words you learned years ago from one of your favorite authors, Mary Baker Eddy. "God's creatures are harmless, useful, and indestructible." That is truer than you or she knew.

So I say to you all, make use of all the resources you currently have on hand. Until you do that, you really do not have room for more. And when you realize that you really have need of something new, rely on the good Father and Mother who made us all to provide that need with the most ideal timing and in the most perfect way. All is well! Well-being truly abounds for one and all.

Have a blessed, gliding, soaring kind of a day and I will do the same. Go in peace!