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Carrion Luggage

by Robert Waltz

Rated: 18+ · Book · Opinion · #2336646

Items to fit into your overhead compartment

Carrion Luggage

Native to the Americas, the turkey vulture (Cathartes aura) travels widely in search of sustenance. While usually foraging alone, it relies on other individuals of its species for companionship and mutual protection. Sometimes misunderstood, sometimes feared, sometimes shunned, it nevertheless performs an important role in the ecosystem.

This scavenger bird is a marvel of efficiency. Rather than expend energy flapping its wings, it instead locates uplifting columns of air, and spirals within them in order to glide to greater heights. This behavior has been mistaken for opportunism, interpreted as if it is circling doomed terrestrial animals destined to be its next meal. In truth, the vulture takes advantage of these thermals to gain the altitude needed glide longer distances, flying not out of necessity, but for the joy of it.

It also avoids the exertion necessary to capture live prey, preferring instead to feast upon that which is already dead. In this behavior, it resembles many humans.

It is not what most of us would consider to be a pretty bird. While its habits are often off-putting, or even disgusting, to members of more fastidious species, the turkey vulture helps to keep the environment from being clogged with detritus. Hence its Latin binomial, which translates to English as "golden purifier."

I rarely know where the winds will take me next, or what I might find there. The journey is the destination.

Show Recent Comments

10 Most Recent Blog Comments:

tj gives thanks for all things

about an hour ago
In response to "Brave New Word"

That's three fr feeling old.

1 Like

Jim

about 2 hours ago
In response to "Brave New Word"

I agree with Brandiwyn🎶Sprinting

, this makes me feel old also. I go back to the old days of the Internet, when it seemed almost everyone used Dial-Up. There were no videos to view, unless you went to the Dark Side, and watched videos or viewed photos you should look at there. I've known 2-3 people who were fired from their jobs for doing just that. Don't get me started on my first experience with a man who was on the Internet very early. That might be an entry to write in "Memories Of My Past"

2 Like

Brandiwyn🎶Sprinting

about 7 hours ago
In response to "Brave New Word"

This just makes me feel old.

3 Like

🌝 HuntersMoon

about 16 hours ago
In response to "Violeting Nature"

OK. We've arrived at that point. Who cares what color the damn tomatoes are? If it's outside your comfort zone, don't eat it. If not, it better have something to offer besides purple stains on the front of your shirt.

1 Like

tj gives thanks for all things

a day ago
In response to "Violeting Nature"

We have pink pineapples and purple tomatoes in our local market. A family friend also grew some purple tomatoes this past summer and gave us a few.

I was not impressed; the store-bought and the homegrown both had little flavor and were soft, like they were overripe. I will likely try them again, just in case the purple tomatoes we did get were overripe or something.

As for the pink pineapples, not for me. I don't know how they taste, but at three times the cost of a yellow pineapple, I'll wait.

2 Like

Turkey DrumStik

a day ago
In response to "Violeting Nature"

Lazy Writer est 4/24/2008

- I'd say that more changes are needed. Even if the changes in soil nutrition/drought conditions end up being less than predicted, we're still going to need food crops to change far more quickly than organic evolution will allow if we want to be able to eat. Changes that allow more nutrients to be put in a smaller package are vital in making sure people aren't regularly dealing with malnutrition (something that can be more painful than people in the West tend to recognize).

Monkeyshines 🍌 🙈🙉🙊

a day ago
In response to "Violeting Nature"

Alright, you caught our attention:

Yes, purple bananas are real and come in several varieties, including the 'Red' banana (also called 'Morado'), which has a deep red or reddish-purple skin and a sweeter, raspberry-like flavor. There are also other purple banana cultivars, such as the 'Royal Purple' and the 'Blue Java' (which has a blue-tinged peel when unripe), that can be grown as ornamental plants or for their unique fruit.

Now, where did Richard hide his credit card — we need to order some bananas!

3 Like

Wordsmitty ✍️

a day ago
In response to "Violeting Nature"

"Cool. Now do purple cows."

I remember this poem from my youth.

The Purple Cow

Gelett Burgess 1866 –1951

I never saw a Purple Cow,
I never hope to see one,
But I can tell you, anyhow,
I’d rather see than be one!

2 Like

Annette

a day ago
In response to "Violeting Nature"

I don't know what they teach in US elementary schools in terms of genetics in plants, but I learned about the white and green peas in third grade.
I was never worried about branch grafting to make better fruits or international cross-pollination to change a plant outcome.
The GMO scare of recent years stems from Monsanto creating RoundUp resistant corn and then proceeding to bleach the landscape with RoundUp, thus inserting RoundUp into the food chain and into our bodies.
Genetically modifying plants is not the problem, but modifying them in a way that they become a new and powerful source of cancer is not at all cool.
Dr Pumpkin (I did that on purpose) should have acknowledged that GMO on a massive scale started out by killing farmers, sterilizing the earth, and poisoning humans.

1 Like

Lazy Writer est 4/24/2008

a day ago
In response to "Violeting Nature"

Is it necessary to try to change everything?

1 Like

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