My Vulture Friend, Morticia

This is our neighborhood vulture rocking a meta birdhouse fascinator, looking very glamorous, as usual.

Morticia is a trip.

She arrived a year ago, rising from the ground like a sail being hoisted towards the sky, leaving my spouse and I wearing matching expressions of bafflement.

What is that?

Eventually she got up from the unkempt pasture, and pulled into a standing position, one wing at the ready, the other hanging loosely to the side. When I went to see if she was okay she hopped-flew into the trees. I called the wildlife people who said they’d take her in but we needed to Uber her over. The last time I delivered an injured bird to them, it died en route. So.

(Plus, people warned me that birds of prey are not good passengers.)

So we came up with a very good name (my suggestion) and did our best to prevent Ridley, our property manager, from getting into a territorial pissing contest with her. There have been some close calls but the bird understands the invisible fence boundaries and pogos over the line whenever our hypo-allergenic designer pet goes pit bull rogue.

Like today. For the first time in a long while the bird was on a coffee break as we headed to the house. Rids, despite our screaming and waving of the fox/bear/coyote stick got upsettingly close to Morticia. It was scary. The vulture got away. Ridley was put on a leash. And my shit list.

That said, despite Morticia’s difficult commute she appears to enjoy her life and career. She has some sort of encampment at the bottom of our woods where she heads when the sun begins its daily descent. Every morning she trudges up the hill like she’s carrying a heavy briefcase and is low-key late for a meeting; then makes a hard left into our neighbor’s yard (which is full of brightly colored art) where she climbs onto an orange cooler and commences guard work. She’s serious about her job.

Though Morticia’s bathroom habits leave a lot to be desired the neighbor has been a gracious host. I guess as a vulture she is used to grossing people out because she takes his annoyance in stride.

Though some might compare her to a rat, nothing could be further from the truth. Rats have those disgusting tails. Morticia is regal.

She shares snacks with the wild cats — as well as the plentiful deer.

They peck and chew in tandem.

Over the winter Morticia disappeared and I worried. Then one day in my peripheral vision I saw what looked like a large sail on its side. I sucked in my breath and turned my head away as fast as I could. And for weeks and weeks I felt all grievey whenever I peeked next door.

One day my husband said, ‘Erika, look!’ and pointed up to a very low hanging branch. I burst into tears.

Morticia had come home.