Buzzard Love: The Story of Ruthie

By Amy Shockley, guest writer

Dedicated to Nora, (of Abbott’s Mill Nature Center) who didn’t laugh at me.

I am about to ask you to believe a true story, one that will seem too fantastic to be plausible. Let me begin by telling you a little bit about myself…

I have always loved furred and feathered creatures, both wild and domestic. I’ve raised and released many an orphaned wild bird or small mammal in my middle years. For a while I even assisted a state licensed wildlife rehabilitator when she was overwhelmed, working under her supervision and license. In fact, my entire life’s story is full, with chapter after chapter of close encounters of the furry and feathery kind. But never in my wildest imagination would I ever have dreamt of being considered a “family member” by a vulture.

Like most everyone, I never gave vultures much notice or thought. Not until my life and Ruthie’s collided would I or could I have guessed how extraordinarily intelligent vultures are, nor how emotional. I marvel that Ruthie, though a bird of prey and eater of carrion, is friendly, loyal, and even concerned and empathetic. And, oh so full of personality. To describe her in two words, “She’s COOL!!”

I am honored and privileged to know her well enough to write her story.

I first met Ruthie around fifteen years ago. Remembering back, I recall standing at my kitchen window, looking out to see an extra cat eating supper with my own three, who always ate together. But the new cat was much bigger than mine, and black, whereas mine were multi-colored. Though none of my cats seemed to take notice of another customer in their midst, I was curious and went out to see the newcomer more closely. To my complete surprise, this wasn’t a cat at all, but a big black buzzard sitting down on its feet to eat. As I approached, the bird saw me and became terrified. It tried in vain to stand and fly, then run to get away, but after great effort the bird finally just fell over on the ground and lay there. Now I had the opportunity to look at the bird for signs of injury or illness, and seeing none, I surmised that it must be weak, maybe close to death, from starvation. That would explain why it had abandoned all caution to eat cat food with the cats, and why it wasn’t standing up while doing so. I felt so sorry for it and immediately went into rescue mode.

This was winter time. A freezing cold wind was blowing; the frozen ground crunched as I walked. The cats had licked their supper plate clean, and with full bellies, had disappeared. The bird and I were alone, and dusk had settled in. There was no time to fool around.

As the bird lay there, I hurried to the house and fetched two cans of cat food. Opening them one by one, I held each to the bird’s beak. It was necessary to support its head, too, but the bird did eat the contents of both cans and then fell asleep right there on the cold ground.

So, what to do now? I did not know. What I did know was that this helpless bird wouldn’t be safe after dark, what with the freezing temperatures and omnipresent foxes and racoons that roam at night looking for food. I left the bird where it lay sleeping, but piled pine branches over and around it and a big tarp over all, held down with old bricks. For good measure I drizzled the tarp edge and bricks with strong- smelling bath oil, hoping to disguise the concealed bird’s scent. Fearing the worst, but hoping for the best, I retired for the night.

Next morning at first light I stepped out into the frigid air to feed my cats and check on the bird. The mound of branches and tarp had not been disturbed! Gently moving bricks, folding back the tarp and parting the branches, I found the bird, weak but alive! Luckily, I had brought more cat food and some water in a shallow jar, which I held while it ate and drank, and then relaxed. I spoke softly to it while covering it back up. Feeling much relieved and encouraged I returned to the house. But I was full of questions…

So, feeling a bit apprehensive, I looked up the number, picked up the phone, and dialed Abbotts Mill Nature Center, hoping I wouldn’t reach someone who might laugh at my “buzzard” questions. I was needlessly concerned. The delightfully warm and friendly Nora answered and, putting me at ease immediately, seemed genuinely happy to help me. And Nora was extremely knowledgeable as well. She identified my bird as a juvenile black vulture (buzzard is a slang term) who had apparently become separated from its family while still too young to fend for itself. It would have died without my intervention, said she, and she encouraged me to continue with the same care until the bird got strong enough to fly. Nora generously shared her wealth of knowledge about vultures with me during those many minutes on the phone. I came away with new and deep respect for black vultures, and to Nora I remain ever grateful.

I continued to care for and protect the vulture for a second day and night. The third day, though, it stood to eat breakfast, then clumsily flew to a low tree branch. Later I felt absolutely JUBILANT as I watched the bird fly away and disappear into the afternoon sun. Ever since, when vultures soar together overhead, the wonderful feeling in my heart returns as I imagine that one of them is “mine,” and the others are its family with whom it has reunited. Little did I realize at the time that the vulture I had rescued would consider me a member of its family, too, and this is where the story of “Ruthie” really begins…

Six months went by. Winter gradually warmed into spring, which heated up into summer. This particular day my plan was to go outside early and get some chores done in the cool of the morning. But stepping outside, I was startled when an adult black vulture came sauntering out from behind my shed and, stopping to bend and pick up a stick in its beak, it resumed boldly walking toward me. As it came, it was turning its glance around in a peculiar way as if to monitor something going on behind. Pretty soon a second black vulture appeared from behind my shed. A little shy, it followed behind the first, which came right up to me and dropped the stick at my feet!! “Well, my goodness! This must be the vulture I rescued last winter,” I realized to myself. But who was the other one? It didn’t take long to figure out that “mine” was female and the second one was her new mate she had brought here to meet me, as they were acting like a couple of love birds (pun intended, ha ha). My vulture had become a “Mrs.”! Wow!! I was so moved I broke down in tears as she coaxed the stick closer to my feet and I understood that it was a gift to me, a human, from her, a vulture. And at that moment, I knew that I loved her.

I decided to postpone the chores and go back inside, for it was embarrassingly obvious that the “newlyweds” should have privacy. Quite a bit later I glanced out the window to view the two vultures roaming around out there picking up and carrying sticks and pebbles and placing them in neat piles off to the side, sticks with sticks and pebbles with pebbles. The female was definitely in charge of this operation, and her mate was just as definitely NOT interested, but got aggressively hen- pecked whenever he slowed down. It was so funny to watch, I found myself glued to the window, laughing till my sides ached. The scenario reminded me of a skit I’d seen years earlier on TV, wherein one of my favorite comediennes, dressed as an old lady, was sitting alone on a park bench. Along came a “dirty old man” who tried to pick her up, and she beat him off, whacking him mercilessly with her cane. Suddenly I saw the similarity between that program and “this” one. Even the facial expressions were similar. The perfect name for this girl vulture, as well as a loving tribute to both the bird and actress, was Ruth Buzzard!!

By the time Ruthie showed up with her new mate, my immediate neighbors knew of her. Not only did they hear about her from me, they also observed her sitting on my roof and on the trees close by, just hanging out unbeknownst to me, and she became sort of a neighborhood celebrity.

She was so well-behaved, and obviously harmless, the neighbors began to wave and greet her as they came and went, many times calling me later to tell me about seeing Ruthie that day. So, I gave my neighbors the job of deciding on an appropriate name for her mate, and he became known as, “Buzz”. Buzz Buzzard.

I didn’t see Ruthie and Buzz in my yard anymore for many weeks. But one fine late summer day I stepped outside and beheld a familiar scene: Ruthie came sauntering out from behind the shed, followed by Buzz, who kept looking behind… and out comes another one!! This one had a bunch of short black feathers sticking up on its head, similar to Ruthie when I found her starving. Thanks to Nora, I knew this was a juvenile vulture and obviously Ruthie and Buzz were proud parents. They had brought their child to greet me!! But there was something not quite right. The youngster repeatedly forced its beak down Ruthie’s throat to feed from her crop, then just stood there with a blank stare on its face. Ruthie and Buzz tried to walk into the yard, but instead of following them, the youngster became very agitated and began to make a very loud “croaking” vocalization until they returned to it, whereupon it settled down.

Finally, the two parents got up against either side of their chick, and holding themselves tightly against it, forced it to walk. They went all around the yard like that. Ruthie tried to show it how-to pick- up sticks. She picked up twigs and forced them into the chick’s beak, whereupon the chick violently spit them out, “croaking” furiously at the mother. Mom and dad finally gave up the effort. Ruthie fed the youngster from her crop, and then forced it to walk over to a birdbath and swish its head and face around in the clean water. (Watching this I was flabbergasted! How did they convey to that defiant chick that it had to put its head under water and swish it around??) Afterwards Ruthie and Buzz groomed its feathers and the three flew away. I assume the chick did not survive, as I never saw it again.

Fall and winter came and went. Ruthie and Buzz continued to stop in occasionally to check up on things, pick up sticks and pebbles, and hang out with the cats sunning themselves here and there. Then spring warmed into summer and the vulture couple were conspicuous in their absence. In late summer mom and dad appeared with their SECOND offspring, whom they proudly presented to me as they had the first. This one, however, was very different from the first. It was alert, animated, cheerful and excited about everything! It did not feed from Ruthie’s crop and enthusiastically learned to tidy up the yard with mom and dad; imagine me with a 3-vulture “grounds keeping crew”! The neighbors were in absolute awe. Of course, they were given the honor of naming the new kid. Not knowing its gender, it became “Buzzy Baby Buzzard” Buzzy Baby survived and thrived into adulthood. She’s a girl and sociable and friendly like her mother, although she lacks Ruthie’s obsession for a clean yard.

The next year Buzzy Baby introduced her new mate to me, although she never presented me with a stick gift, nor did he. However, she did introduce her new mate, and present a stick gift, to my black cat BEE-CEE!! Her mate was scared of the cat, but Buzzy Baby presented him to the cat anyway.

I noticed that Buzzy Baby’s mate seemed to be quite “intellectually challenged.” He did not survive past early summer and Buzzy Baby never raised a family of her own. Sadly, Buzz himself disappeared also. For most of these fifteen years, mother and daughter have been alone. Widowed.

But Ruthie and Buzzy Baby found their “niche.” Rather than being idle, they have each raised foster chicks, sometimes several per season. Some have been older, some younger, some rowdy, nasty-tempered and disobedient, some docile and sweet. I could tell that many couldn’t have been nest-mates starting out. Kudos to Ruthie and Buzzy Baby for their unselfish care and concern and without apparent appreciation from the young ones!

I now more fully understood Ruthie’s dire plight that first winter when she was trying to eat with my cats. She must have lost both of her parents and was not rescued by another vulture acting as a substitute caregiver. She must have been trying to make it on her own. So, when I fed and protected her, I became her foster mother, and thus earned “family” status that she never forgot. She treats me with such honor, concern, respect and love, and yet she doesn’t come here to get food nor ask for anything from me at all – and this moves me to tears, too.

Earlier I described how Ruthie presented me with a little stick dropped at my feet, a gift of friendship I thought. Ever since, whenever we encounter each other, Ruthie greets me the same way, but she “mimes” the behavior. She bends down and gently nibbles at whatever surface she’s standing on, pretending to pick up an imaginary stick and pretending to drop it, repeating this several times. This is obviously a symbolic greeting, to her way of thinking, but stick giving doesn’t work the other way around. I did try. Picking up a little twig, I dropped it at her feet several years ago and Ruthie looked at me as if I had gone nuts. It was hilarious! I wonder what she thought I was trying to say? – Ha Ha!! And I wonder that she never gave her symbolic greeting to any of the neighbors when they waved and greeted her as they came, and went. She seemed to understand and enjoy the attention, but I guess the neighbors were not, in her opinion, “stick worthy.” But I’m beginning to have a flash of insight. More about that later, but first I’ll talk about Ruthie, the cat and the mailman, and then my flash of insight makes more sense.

Anyone who has cats, especially cats that live or go outside, is probably familiar with cats’ propensity to kill some small prey and leave the corpse as a “gift” at their owner’s door. My outdoor cats did this a lot, but Ruthie thought the gifts were for her. She got into the habit of sitting on the mailbox to wait and watch for her gift to be delivered. Bee Cee the black cat did not disappoint very often, which gave Ruthie positive reinforcement to sit on the mailbox. However, this was a real problem for most letter carriers, who were afraid of vultures up close and personal like that. They refused to deliver my mail. And it was a problem for me, trying to dissuade Ruthie from sitting there so I could get my mail.

This was a normal daily problem until the USPS assigned this route to a new letter carrier. This awesome young man was French Canadian and not at all afraid of vultures. One day I saw him walk right up to the mailbox and, with Ruthie sitting on top, he spoke French to Ruthie while he opened the door and slipped the mail in!! The next couple of days I make sure to watch for this to happen again. Well, I got my money’s worth, let me tell you!! This young man had charmed Ruthie to the point that she acted like she had fallen in love. He would “coo” very romantic-sounding French (I wish I understood) to her, whereupon Ruthie would get all coy, turning sideways and looking over her shoulder and batting her eyes at him while he opened box and dropped in the mail. (This is a rural type mailbox that sits horizontally on a post with a door at one end.)

It wasn’t long before our mailman began delivering intermittently, with part-timers filling in. It got so Ruthie would soar overhead to see which mail carrier was delivering that day, and she only sat on the mailbox if it was him. It broke her heart when there was no mail for this address and he walked right by, not stopping. I have no idea whether or not Ruthie met our mailman at other houses, but I don’t think so; she isn’t tame, and she avoids humans for the most part.

Back to my flash of insight… As far as I know, Ruthie has given a real stick as a gift to two living entities: myself, when she brought her new mate to meet me fifteen years ago, but only once; and she also gave Bee Cee the cat a real stick, but only once. Her daughter, Buzzy Baby, gave Bee Cee a real stick, too, but only once when she was introducing her new mate to the cat.

I worked hard trying to figure this out. The common denominator seems to be the receipt of food by the bird, from me or Bee Cee. For all wildlings, food is the most valuable currency because food is life. Lack of food is death. I saved Ruthie from starvation with cat food. Ruthie thinks Bee Cee was gifting his kill to her. Bee Cee may have dropped some kill that Buzzy Baby got, or she watched her mother get the kill. Or it’s possible that Ruthie communicated to her daughter that the cat delivers kill to be eaten. Whatever the explanation, Bee Cee and I received the highest recognition and gift a vulture can offer. Ever since, Ruthie and her daughter always do the symbolic version of the greeting with every encounter.   

Over the years I have encountered Ruthie while both of us were out and about in the “real world.” I don’t recognize Ruthie from a distance - one black vulture looks like every other to me. But she recognizes me, even if I’m in a crowd of people, and she always gives me that symbolic greeting! Then I recognize her and wave back and shout, “Hi, Ruthie!!” Other people have witnessed and can attest to this, and they are flabbergasted when it happens. (And it makes me feel so good, ha ha.)

Another flash of insight came while observing the interactions between Ruthie and Buzz, and also Buzzy Baby and her mate. It seems to me that vulture unions are matriarchal, i.e., females rule. Females lead, males follow. Females perform the “social graces,” such as greeting and gift giving. Females force their will on males, as when Ruthie hen-pecked Buzz to make him pick up sticks and pebbles with her. When my new mate came on the scene in September, 2020, I “presented” him to Ruthie. Honestly, I’d swear to the fact that Ruthie understood that this new person was my mate. He didn’t get a stick gift, but he did get a hearty symbolic greeting!! Ruthie was not a bit shy around him either, as she had always been with strangers. The mailman doesn’t even get a symbolic greeting!

Many folks describe hens that are in the mood to sit on eggs and hatch a clutch of baby chicks as “broody.“  I wrongly assumed that Ruthie was feeling broody when she was wandering all over the yard picking up and placing those sticks and pebbles in neat piles. Because it was blatantly obvious that she expected her mate to be involved in this project with her, too, I guessed this was probably a normal black vulture courting ritual. But I was wrong. It’s quite possible that this behavior is a courting ritual, but in Ruthie’s case it seems she is bothered by an untidy yard. It’s been her practice to drop in and do a quick clean up now and then for most of these fifteen years. I don’t understand why she feels it necessary to move pebbles, though, or why certain pebbles are moved while others are not.

Just recently I was carrying a container of clean recyclables to dump in our bin. (We have curbside pickup here in town) I tripped. My recyclables tumbled all over the place. I started to retrieve them, but it was such a hot and humid day I soon had to sit down in the shade, temporarily leaving the mess. Out of nowhere Ruthie and Buzzy Baby appeared from the sky and rushed around picking up cans, putting them in a neat pile. They rolled glass jars into another pile. I couldn’t believe my eyes when the two ladies carefully turned each can upright and removed the lids which I had inserted back into them during the washing process, and put the lids together in a separate pile. After completion of the cleanup job, the birds stood with their wings outstretched for a quick sun bath before disappearing back into the sky!!!

This day, and for the first time, I saw that Ruthie was showing advanced age. As she sunbathed, her outstretched wings were deformed with arthritis. Her face sagged with wrinkles. Dull, gray, frayed feathers had replaced the sleek black ones. She walked with difficulty, as if in pain. As I sat on my bench in the shade, I pulled out my phone and snapped her picture as she stood there in the sun next to her daughter. I never saw Ruthie again after that encounter, and now all I have of her are the wonderful memories she left behind…

Some memories are hilarious, like the time she decided to bathe in the small birdbath only about an inch and a half deep by 18” wide and meant for tiny birds. 

It was like a hippopotamus trying to bath in a doll-sized tub! With overwhelming determination, that big bird flipped and flopped from side to side, then flat on her back with her feet up in the air, then both sides of her face. Sitting down, she swished her butt and tail in what was left of the water, as I laughed ‘till my sides hurt. But she got the job done to her satisfaction, as she preened her soaking wet self, shook herself to fluff out, and flew away.

Some memories are deeply moving, like the time I was out back weeding the herb garden and suddenly became aware that Ruthie had been right there beside me, watching me work. “Oh, Hi Ruthie,” I exclaimed, startled, whereupon she gave me the stick greeting. Her facial expression looked as if the little sneak was tickled about having snuck up on me. I could almost hear her say, “Whatcha doing, Mom?” I answered out loud, showing her a pulled weed with a wiggly worm among the roots and dirt. She wasn’t a bit impressed, but patiently remained while I finished and stood, groaning ‘cause it hurts to get up. But Ruthie took off, trotting ahead of me towards the house. I have an arthritic and very painful right knee that slows me down and causes me to limp. When Ruthie realized she’d left me behind, she ran back and, right up against my left leg, she walked my speed and faked an exaggerated limp with her right leg, walking in step and empathy with me!! The concern and support coming from Ruthie’s pure and loving heart was absolutely palpable.  I’d have picked her up, kissed and hugged her in gratitude, but one doesn’t do things like that with black vultures, (nor any other kind, either.)

Amazingly, Ruthie truly understood that I was having difficulty walking and she cared! Her behavior gave me an “I’ve got your back” feeling. She patiently walked me to the back door and std by until I got inside. Then she flew away, asking nothing form me in return for her assistance and companionship.

I think Ruthie would have and could have been an amazing emotional support animal; and she would have come by it naturally, without training, too. I invite the reader to imagine a black vulture wearing an official emotional support animal ID harness (and diaper) boarding a plane, enjoying a concert, or eating in a restaurant with it’s human??

And more memories, like the countless times she knocked at my back door with her beak, just to check up on me when I answered, or the time she saw me sitting in my car at my church for an extended period of time and insisted I open the car door, step outside and prove that I was okay before flying away, or the other countless times she came to my house just to hang-out with my cats.

What a wealth of wonderful memories!

To conclude, I am reminded of an unforgettable speech made many years by a truly great man, during which we were challenged by him to judge others by “the content of their character,” rather than their appearance. When I think of Ruthie, I recall that speech. It would be a little difficult to admire a black vulture’s physical attractiveness, but Ruthie’s golden character made her exquisitely beautiful in my eyes, and so very precious to me. I am forever changed for the better from having had the gift and blessing of knowing her.

Rest in peace, my beloved one. If I get to heaven, I know I’ll see you there.