It was Friday evening and I was home by myself, mom and my little brother Stuart were lure coursing so they were gone and my father had left for work and I was washing dishes and looked out the window to see 10 vultures standing in the yard out back, about 20 feet from the house. It freaked me out needless to say. Yes, they had been that close to the house... in fact they had been closer before - but I had NEVER seen them in the yard that late. Up until then I had only seen them in the yard early in the morning before I let dogs out. Well, now they officially turned it into a game with the dogs. I got up at 6 this morning to let Isaac, Anna, Helen, Francois, Tinsley & Delite out and walked out into the kitchen first for a glass of water and looked out to see one vulture standing near the porch. I went to grab the camera that was sitting in the living room when I heard another vulture up on the room walking around over the kitchen. That was normal, I have heard them up there before (will include another story when I am done with this one about vultures on the roof.) so I grabbed the camera and took a picture through the kitchen window except the flash was on and the picture turned out to be one big white blob and the vulture flew off when he saw the flash go off. His buddy on the roof joined him. So I went to let the dogs out and went back to lay down with my bed dogs and got back up this morning and let them in while we let our bed dogs outside. No vultures to be seen then and then I let Belle (my Basenji), Quizzie & Apoll (my Cresteds) out and went back in my room as mom was up. Apoll uses the stair already even at her tiny size and only goes down to potty and then stays on the porch where Quizzie stands over her the WHOLE time (She's still very attached to her baby). Mom called me out and told me to look outside - there were about 15 vultures out back on the other side of the fence. Belle was out exploring like she always does and could care less about them. She was actually up against the fence just a few feet away from them. I had thrown two toys over the fence 2 days ago when I was picking up the yard so that we could mow and the vultures were picking at them and trying to pick them up, very curious birds. So I snapped a few pics and brought them back inside and let Balto out. Balto could care less about the vultures and never acknowledged them :)
The vultures out back, you can sort of see Belle walking around by the fence, there is also a vulture on top of our building on the very edge of the left side.
When he was done I let the rest of the Whippies out and the bird had mostly all flown up into the neighbors trees by then but some where still hanging out on our shed out back. It's a little after 10 here and the vultures are making it a game to annoy the Whippets now, they are flying from the neighbors trees to our trees and the Whippets are running in circles out there :) There were three that even remained out back behind the fence and stood there while the Whippets barked at them (and there are 10 Whippets out there, they never moved.) Thank god for our hot wire we put up, so the Whippets don't even touch the fence. So the birds are still flying around out there making the Whippets nuts - hey, it's tiring the out and they seem to be enjoying themselves. Good way to keep them fit I guess! If vultures could laugh, I swear the would be giggling out there with all these Whippets running around after them :)
Here are the vultures on our shed out back - part of the tin roof peeled back when we had some nasty weather a few weeks back.
Now for another story - 'Vultures on the roof'
Mom and I were standing in the kitchen, maybe about 2 weeks or so ago and we were talking when we heard something run across the roof. Well, Stuart was the only other one home and yes, he has been known to be on the roof before. He's a wild 13 year old boy and I have had to yell at him before to get off the roof. So mom and I went out front and started to yell at him to come down, nothing. Mom went back in the house and I walked about the house, still yelling at Stuart to get down. I figured he was hiding up there or had hopped off when I couldn't see him so I went back in and mom and I were talking again in the kitchen when Stuart walks out of the bathroom!!! Poor Stuart, we looked over at him and then mom and I looked at one another and Stuart was like, "What?" We told him we thought he was on the roof, he was actually in the bathroom taking a shower. The thing we heard run across the roof was very loud and I have heard Stuart on the roof before and sounded like a person, very heavy foot steps. It couldn't have been another person because the only was up and down off the roof without a ladder is in the backyard, and even then you still need some sort of ladder - but we had dogs out and they would have NEVER let anyone they didn't know come into the backyard. So it must have been a vulture, that must have been one BIG vulture to sound like a person on the roof. I had seen them on the roof before in the morning, but this was shortly after noon or so and didn't expect to have a vulture on the roof then! Needless to say we were freaked out at first as I never thought a vulture could sound that heavy on the roof.
So, I have no dubbed this place "VULTURE VILLAGE" for obvious reason. I'm not afraid for the dogs anymore as the birds could care less, they seem very fat and happy :) But I will be keeping a very close eye on our puppies this fall when we have them. They won't be unsupervised for quite some time.
Well, I hope you enjoyed the story of Vulture Village! There will probably be several more in the future.
Krys
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