Thoughts From the Front Porch…
Well, we are back in Northeast Ohio after a wonderful five months in south Georgia.
Spring has sprung here. The grass is way ahead of us and the April showers didn’t bring many flowers, but the dandelions are in full bloom.
The butterflies are out and about, too. I snapped this picture as I mowed down about a million dandelions in our country yard this week. (No butterflies were harmed in the production of this photograph) Almost everywhere, Dandelions are the true harbinger of spring.
Ohio’s State Flower is Bursting Into Full Bloom
Ohio’s state flower shows up along almost every highway in the state this time of year. We enjoyed them as we drove back into Buckeye land last Monday.
The beautiful, large bloomed orange and white flowers grow by the thousands, almost always in a straight line. Its scientific name is the Orange Highway Barrel.
What? That’s not the official state flower.
Oh, that’s right it’s the red carnation, which was adopted as the state flower in 1904 after the assassination of President William McKinley.
Sorry for the confusion. Maybe the orange barrel is the unofficial state flower. Anyway, they are a sure sign that it’s finally springtime in Ohio.
In Hinckley It’s The Buzzards
But for folks in Hinckley, Ohio, it’s the buzzards that signify spring time. Oh, they call them vultures, but where I come from in West Virginia they were called buzzards.
The buzzards returned to Hinckley right on schedule on March 15 this year. Some folks say they really never left, but lots of people gather each year for the first vulture sighting on March 15.
Cleveland.com headlined a story “Buzzards bring the joy of spring to Hinckley.”
Writer Brian Lisk said, for the record, the first kettle of seven buzzards finally arrived on the scene at 10:34 a.m.
Metroparks Naturalist and Official Buzzard Spotter Foster Brown gave the faithful watchers some valuable vulture facts as they waited.
For instance, a group of turkey vultures in flight is known as a kettle, a group in a tree is called a committee, and a committee (or a kettle) on the ground is a wake.
I guess its a wake for the dearly departed, which they will consume. Did you know buzzards won’t eat anything that’s been dead over 36 hours. That explains why those deer carcasses lie along Pennsylvania highways for months. Road crews even paved over a dead deer at least once in the Keystone State.
I was told Pennsylvania is an old Indian name meaning many dead dear along the trail.
Warm Weather Brings Out Armadillos in Georgia
The buzzards were busy in south Georgia last week as the armadillos, like possums in the north, were having a tough time navigating the traffic.
“Why did the armadillo try to cross the road?” To prove it could be done, or to go where no armadillo has gone before.
The History of Buzzard Day
According to the cleveland.com article, the history of Buzzard Day officially goes back to 1958.
The birds return from their fall migration each spring and nest in the high rocky ledges of the Hinckley Reservation.
I guess they go away for the winter because they get tired of frozen dinners.
Folklore claims, the story says, that buzzards first came to town after the Great Hinckley Hunt in the winter of 1828. The hunt say nearly 600 men gathered to eradicate the area of wolves and other predators that were killing livestock, leaving a veritable smorgasbord of carrion for hungry buzzards.
In the 1950s a Cleveland Metroparks patrolman offhandedly told a Cleveland Press reporter that he personally had clocked the birds’ appearance ever March 15 the previous six years. The story spread across the country and on March 15, 1957, 9,000 spectators and lots of media, arrived in Hinckley to witness the return of the vultures.
Traditionally they kick off the special Buzzard Sunday event, generally the first Sunday after March 15th, with a pancake breakfast. Is that because road kill is as flat as a pancake for the vultures?
Some Call Them… Lawyers
Most people call them vultures, but in North Carolina, they call them lawyers.
I took this picture in Lillington, N.C. last year.
It took a lot of nerve for the Buzzard family to put that in the name of their law firm.
I guess if you want a lawyer to pick the insurance company clean, the Buzzard Law Firm is the best choice.
In California, It’s the Swallows
And in California, it’s spring when the swallows return to Mission San Juan Capistrano.
The Audubon Society says, “For years, the Cliff Swallows returned on or around March 19, St. Joseph’s day, to nest in the eves of the old mission.”
The swallows lately have not returned to the mission in large numbers as they used to. The theory is, according to the society, that increased development has created more places to nest and reduced the insect population that used to draw them in.
That’s a tough pill for the California environmentalists to, um, swallow.
Meanwhile, Back at the Dandelion Patch
If I were 30 years younger, I’ll sell those dandelion greens to the health food restaurants. They make great salad greeens. Or, I’d make and bottle dandelion wine, like I sampled as a teen-ager.
But for now, I just enjoy their color — at least until I mow them down.
Thanks for reading. Your comments would make this post much more interesting.
Or, you could buy me a cup of coffee here. I need it to put a little spring in my step.
Thank-you for this lovely view of Spring in your neck of the woods! Wish that I would have taken photos as we were driving in town yesterday. The colors are splendid and it always feels as if I am seeing them for the first time. And San Juan Capitstrano, I so miss it as I lived there but left in October of '04. The swallows loved visiting The Mission and the rule was "try not to go through town to grocery shop on March 19 because it will be filled with tourists." There is always scaffolding around that building. I wonder what is going on now that scares the birds away. Possibly fewer visitors? Spring in the mid west is lovely however I would prefer summer at the ocean, day and night.