Sure Sign of Spring # 1

Today is Buzzard Day in Hinckley, Ohio.  Today birdwatchers of every feather flock to this quiet town in the northeast corner of our Medina County to catch a glimpse of the buzzards returning to their Ohio summer homes after wintering in, so I hear, the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee.  This coming Sunday is Buzzard Sunday, and the town will have a festival honoring the return of these part-time locals.  Florida has snowbirds, and we have buzzards.

In this part of Ohio, we know that buzzards are good to have around in the warmer months.  Other critters have been hibernating all winter, and now that it's getting warmer they're coming out of their dens and burrows - bunnies and chipmunks, deer and skunks and possums and squirrels.  The woods and fields are becoming alive with the little guys, and they'll be busy and active all summer.

Periodically one of them will try to cross the road (after the manner of chickens) and meet an untimely demise at the hands of Mack or Ford or Toyota.  Since only people and pets get the privilege of burials, and since it seems that Mike Rowe is always busy elsewhere, someone else has to take care of the ministration of last rites to these departed denizens of the forest floor.  Buzzards are well-suited to the task and do it ably and thoroughly.  Like their human counterparts, others are sometimes a little put-off by them and even make jokes about them to ease discomfort, but the buzzards don't seem to mind.  They have their calling, and we have ours.  Welcome back!