Mommy!!! Come look at the Hawk!

We were sleeping peacefully Saturday morning, hoping to sleep later than usual after a long and late night of carving Styrofoam. I hear a commotion, a noise, that causes one eye to open warily. Quiet for the moment, and I'm up anyway, I decide to get up and use the bathroom. I can hear the kids talking excitedly through the walls. My curiosity piqued, I go to investigate.

"Mommy!!! Come look at the hawk!" comes the chorus from my children. What hawk? In the garden on the fence... Um... that's not a hawk.

What is this ungainly bird preening himself on my fencepost?

I sent Audie to get the camera and quieted Chloie and Dougie so that we could open the window for better pictures. The vulture quietly shook, ruffled, and cleaned only once stopping to look uninterestedly at us at the window.That is one big ugly bird. The kids were afraid that he was going to eat the plants in the garden, but I explained that he prefers animals that are already dead. A rather morbid start to the morning, but then again it worked well to get me in the mood for a vicious dragon required for this Saturday's wedding cake.

Apparently he didn't want to clean long, because shortly after I snapped these pictures, he flew away, leaving me unable to capture his full wingspan.