Driving back to spring, we left the wintery landscape of northeastern Ohio and headed WSW across the Glaciated Plain of the American Midwest. While we enjoyed clear skies and mild weather, wildlife observations were rather limited. Turkey vultures were the lone exception, soaring above the snow speckled farmlands from Ohio to Missouri.
These avian drones, unlike their military counterparts, are not predators; rather, they keep an eye (and, more importantly, a nose) on the rolling fields below, searching for carrion. Roadkill is readily available along and near the highway and many small mammals, especially young cottontails, likely succumbed to our recent storm which left a heavy blanket of snow across the Heartland, now melting in the late March sun.
Terrestrial animals, including humans, tend to focus on the horizontal. While we enjoy a colorful sunrise or sunset and glance at the night sky now and then, our daily chores keep us focused on our personal landscape; the heavens are reserved for pilots, meteorologists, astronomers and day-dreamers. Prey animals, though subject to attack by raptors, must also concentrate on their ground-based habitat in order to find food, a potentially lethal distraction; even the terrestrial hunters, sniffing the air and scanning the horizon, pay little attention to the dome of sky. Above us all, vultures survey the drama, gliding on thermals and waiting to feast on the leftovers.
