Nature

My mother sends me clippings from Rhode Island. Today I read about Buddy Cianci, the former mayor of Providence who has just gotten out of prison and whose spaghetti sauce is sold on grocery shelves, and another about a family in rural RI who have been driven out of their home and lost their money because of vultures. Turkey vultures. Buzzards. Buzzards are moving north, and apparently are not good neighbors if they take a fancy to your place. But the story should have come with a Graphic Nature Detail Advisory warning, since it described in detail the digestive and excretory practices of buzzards.

I once lived ten miles out of town, on a dead end road up a mountain side. My dog and cat and I could hike up the ridge behind the house. Once we bushwacked up to a high rock outcropping, where, while we drank water and looked at the distant view an enormous black bird with outspread wings appeared, floating slowly on the air below us, then disappeared. It seemed like a giant hawk or eagle or even a condor! -- but of course, it was a vulture. All in your point of view.