![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
It seems to me that birds, more than any other critter, are portents to strangeness. Perhaps it's because I see them as rather surreal animals in their own right. Little avian dinosaurs with topsy turvy eyelids and inscrutable thoughts in tilted considering stares.
One of the more bizarre Jersey birds is the turkey buzzard. These creatures look like they would be more at home next to a bleached skull on sandy expanse. Instead, they often circle over highways, observing things like jack knifed tracker trailers and car fires with disturbing intent.
I once spotted a pair of them doing the "that cowboy ain't gonna make it" aerial dance over the traffic ahead of me. Around the next bend, off the road, hidden under foliage, was a grounded one straddling a deer carcass. For a moment I thought I was on Lion Country Safari, not I-78. Dead deer don't usually bounce that far off the road, did the giant scavenger somehow drag it's prize to a more comfortable spot? Like I said, surreal.
Yesterday, a pair of the impressively ugly birds were just standing in the middle of a local road, seemingly amiably sharing some road kill. They didn't really seem to mind as we drove past them. They seemed to dare oncoming traffic to hit them, so content were they on the road. Unusually relaxed for the usually skittish beasts.
Like I said, portents to strangeness.
One block up the road, the air was murky, seemingly emanating from behind a house. At first, it looked like a spray of water reflecting the sunlight. No, it was smoke. Smoke off color enough that we initially didn't recognize it as such. And thick. Probably a BBQ, but there was the troubling thought of house fire. We drove through the cloud, both trying the catch an odor that would say burning burgers rather than burning house and ease our worries. Indeed, are worries were eased!
The smell was distinct. Not treated pine, nor starter doused charcoal. No animal sacrifice or some sickly sweet sauce from bottle. No, there was absolutely no doubt. The enormous cloud we'd just passed through could only be marijuana!
There was a pause of disbelief. Quick startled glances confirmed the initial impression. On some local road in suburbia was a cloud that would do a rock concert proud. It made quite an impression and we have developed numerous theories. A parent incinerating some teenager's stash? Or better, a stash hidden in the family BBQ, accidentally sacrificed to the first firing of the year? One thing is sure, someone is "totally bummed" right now.
But the best part, thinking back, is the buzzards. The overly mellow buzzards, their attention completely absorbed by their munchies!
One of the more bizarre Jersey birds is the turkey buzzard. These creatures look like they would be more at home next to a bleached skull on sandy expanse. Instead, they often circle over highways, observing things like jack knifed tracker trailers and car fires with disturbing intent.
I once spotted a pair of them doing the "that cowboy ain't gonna make it" aerial dance over the traffic ahead of me. Around the next bend, off the road, hidden under foliage, was a grounded one straddling a deer carcass. For a moment I thought I was on Lion Country Safari, not I-78. Dead deer don't usually bounce that far off the road, did the giant scavenger somehow drag it's prize to a more comfortable spot? Like I said, surreal.
Yesterday, a pair of the impressively ugly birds were just standing in the middle of a local road, seemingly amiably sharing some road kill. They didn't really seem to mind as we drove past them. They seemed to dare oncoming traffic to hit them, so content were they on the road. Unusually relaxed for the usually skittish beasts.
Like I said, portents to strangeness.
One block up the road, the air was murky, seemingly emanating from behind a house. At first, it looked like a spray of water reflecting the sunlight. No, it was smoke. Smoke off color enough that we initially didn't recognize it as such. And thick. Probably a BBQ, but there was the troubling thought of house fire. We drove through the cloud, both trying the catch an odor that would say burning burgers rather than burning house and ease our worries. Indeed, are worries were eased!
The smell was distinct. Not treated pine, nor starter doused charcoal. No animal sacrifice or some sickly sweet sauce from bottle. No, there was absolutely no doubt. The enormous cloud we'd just passed through could only be marijuana!
There was a pause of disbelief. Quick startled glances confirmed the initial impression. On some local road in suburbia was a cloud that would do a rock concert proud. It made quite an impression and we have developed numerous theories. A parent incinerating some teenager's stash? Or better, a stash hidden in the family BBQ, accidentally sacrificed to the first firing of the year? One thing is sure, someone is "totally bummed" right now.
But the best part, thinking back, is the buzzards. The overly mellow buzzards, their attention completely absorbed by their munchies!