Suburban Vultures: A Close Encounter – 2019

I remember the first omen: A rear car window splattered with dried droppings. I remember because the clean used car had been parked in our driveway only two days. We had just brought it home from having it repaired, a gift from a good friend to our daughter who had totaled hers earlier in the new year.

I didn’t like the look of what I saw but didn’t anticipate that it would be more than a “passing matter.” I didn’t, that is, until our driveway filled with more blatant signs of the presence of large birds of prey. We were rather clueless as to what we had in store for us. When I found large individual vulture feathers in the yard, I thought it quaint that we shared our airspace with these incredible soaring dinosaurs. John collected the feathers placing them on an outside window pane in a “bone” vase.

The real definitive presence of our vulture boarders revealed itself the day we returned from two weeks in Puerto Rico in late February. Given the number of pine and other branches strewn about our property, it was obvious that we had had strong wind storms while we were away. Strangely, the fallen Loblolly Pine branches all looked as if they had been sprayed white. What was going on? I didn’t put two and two together until a day or so later. The branches were white because they were coated with Vulture guano. I awoke more fully to the raptors’ presence.

Instead of becoming more concerned about the birds, I became fascinated with them. Each morning, they perched in the large trees behind our home. From the second floor, I was eye to eye with them about thirty feet away. I watched as they preened, spread and warmed their wings in the sun to warm up before flight and sat in their meditative, pre-workday quiet. I was smitten, I must say. How often might I come into such close contact with a large wild animal? I was capitivated.

However, after cleaning the guano from the driveway several times, John was less enamored with the visitors. The kettle, the name for a group of vultures, had about fifteen birds. We decided on action. One evening arriving from a meeting at dusk and seeing the vultures perched in the pines, we clapped and hooted and hollered for a few minutes. The birds were decidedly unimpressed. So John put down the guantlet to ensure that these interlopers found another ‘comfort inn’ at night.

As part of his efforts he read up on suburban vultures, even calling a wildlife specialist. This man then left a message detailing proven methods of getting the birds to move. Among them: setting off firecrackers, using air horns and even draping an effigy of a dead vulture over a branch of a roosting tree. He also said that vultures do not make nests, but lay an egg within a protected area of a tree. Once the egg was laid, the kettle would not be moving any time soon.

In the meanwhile, John developed another strategy: calling on his training in the Native American way, he attuned to the birds’ place in the universe, honoring their right to be, yet honoring ours as well not to have them in such close proximity. He then was determined to convey our conviction to benignly get them to another roosting site. I joined the effort.

John gathered two of our Native American hoop drums. We began to beat the drums when thee birds began their swirling descent to our tree tops. The drumming made quite a racket, echoing against our home and surrounding buildings.  A funny moment in our endeavor came on Day 2. John had just spent about 30 minutes steadily drumming and successfully getting the birds to leave for the night. Our neighbor was picking him up for an evening meeting. I was to keep an eye out for any returning birds. Of course, when the drumming stopped, the vultures retured.

Ever on the ready, I began drumming again. The sound caught our neighbor’s attention. John brought him back to our patio and I greeted him, offering him the chance to join in our vulture-relocation program. He did so enthusiatically. I asked if he had thought on awakening that morning whether his day would include drumming vultures away from our backyard. He nodded “no” with a wry smile.

Along with drumming, when we had to be away for an evening around roosting time, John devised another plan. He took the old boombox from our basement and put it on the patio table, its speakers aiming up into the trees. He then blasted jazz from a local radio station. The first night, it was on for nearly five hours.

The next morning, I awoke to long voicemail from a neighbor asking if we were okay because there was loud music coming from our patio area but we didn’t seem to be home. I knew we were risking something like this. The next day, another neighbor sent an email whose subject was “Enjoying the concert.” What was the subtext of that one? I let both neighbors know about our predicament.  They responded with empathy, one even offering to lend us his air horn.

Our next, more refined step was to use a timer on the boombox when we were away during the roosting hour. Then, we could target our “noise patrol” to coincide with the exact time for the birds’ arrival and no more. This approach was more civil and less likely to harrass our neighbors.

I can now say with certainty that our vultures have relocated elsewhere. Several weeks back, in the mornings, I found half a dozen under the pine trees. I shooed them away and off they flew, timid on the ground. We are now able to enjoy our patio on perfect Spring days without having to do a deep cleaning each time.

I appreciate having had this close encounter with our vulture kin. Overcoming my initial prejudice about these birds, I learned a deeper respect for them. I shed some of my primal reactions about what vultures do to stay alive and keep our ecosystem healthy. They’re teaching me more deeply about life and death and about my and their rightful place in creation. For this I am grateful.