More birds

A little more than a week ago, I had to run up to Huntington High School. While waiting for my daughter to finish the activity she was involved in, I looked for the hawk that frequents the area. I didn't see it, but I heard some caws off to my right. There were maybe a half dozen crows in the trees. I got as close as I could before they flew off.

(Note to bird lovers: If these are ravens, rooks or flibbertigibbets rather than crows, please be gentle with me.).

And this past Sunday, I saw a lot of buzzards in a tree along the Ohio River in Lawrence County, Ohio. They often use this tree as a roost. I got close enough to get a couple of photos, but I had to push my equipment to the limit. The limit of my knowledge. I really need to read the instruction book so I can compensate for the differences in light and such.

Anyway, I almost like buzzards. I wouldn't want one as a pet, but I would like to get some more pictures of them sometimes. Crows, too.

As I get older, I am less and less interested in human activities and more interested in the world around me. That's why my attitudes toward mountaintop removal mining really tear at me. I've never liked strip mining, but I'm addicted to cheap electricity. But as long as the utilities are being required to build cleaner, more expensive power plants, it's probably time for the companies that mine coal to get with the program, too.

But that's a topic for another time.

Back to the buzzards: When my youngest was in pre-school, I bought a $4 bargain book called "Vultures: Nature's Ghastly Gourmet." He was thrilled with the photos of buzzards eating dead animals, and he found it interesting when I read to him the part about how buzzards start at two or three particular points on a carcass and work inward. He took the book to preschool to show his teacher and her assistant. They didn't see the fascination my son had with buzzards. Oh well.