Turkey vultures

There is a cemetery near my house, a historic one where if you look hard enough you find memorials to soldiers from the Revolutionary war. It has rolling slopes of green (when they're not covered in a bed of white snow). Every time I walk by there, I see some kind of wildlife. A woodchuck once. This weekend it was a fleet of turkey vultures. They came up from behind the churchyard, deathly silent, five of them, in formation. The distinctive V-shape they held their wings in; their black outlines in the sky; a band of silvery white feathers on the underside of the wings. They barely needed to flap, just glided - rocking slightly - in the wind. When they were just above me, they went their separate ways, spreading out to search for carrion to feast on. Within a matter of a minute, they had glided so far that they were almost out of sight, and it reminded me why I wish I was a raptor, able to go wherever I choose, with only a moment's forethought.

Pic (C) Michael "Mike" L. Baird bairdphotos.com