It was my honor and special moment to give this beautiful bird a safe place to pass on to the Summerland. I was driving home from grocery shopping and I passed what I thought was a dead crow on the road…a rare and sad sight…they are usually so nimble. I turned around to get it off the road (hoping to prevent any possible friends and family coming to her side and getting hit themselves…I don’t know if they do that but I didn’t want to take any chances). I was surprised to see her sitting there in the road…an injured black vulture. She had been eating a dead rabbit on the road but must have gotten flung pretty far because she was about thirty feet from the rabbit and there were feathers strewn along the side of the road.
It was tragic…just heartbreaking. But I got her in the back of the van and got her home. She couldn’t move her legs or body really…could only move her head and neck. She was alert and there was just this sweetness to her. I fell in love. Still am. She passed on that afternoon…before I could get her to a rehabber. Mama came over and helped me get her comfortable in the study where it would be private, dark and warm. I only had her for that afternoon and yet she has made this huge impression on me. I still cry when I think about her…look at the photo…you can just see the kindness and the sweetness in her face. And the pain. I think she was young. And I think about her family. How they must miss her.
I was out walking the other morning and saw a venue of vultures flying overhead. They love to go to the Roopville graveyard to play on the wind currents there. And I thought maybe they were her family and it gladdened my heart to see them.