"A shocking experience"-it's all the buzz!

This morning began a very exciting way. About 8:00 this morning, Jeremy was sitting outside reading his science book when he heard a strange noise. From inside it sounded like there was a cricket chirping, kinda high pitched. Jeremy ran inside very excitedly and said "Did you hear that noise?!! There was just a bird sitting on a wire and it got shocked and fell off the wire! Can we PLEASE go try and find it? We'll put on gloves and be careful. PLEASE!!" (Insert begging eyes) I'm thinking "Great, a hands on science lesson! And safety too. Some poor little bird has been shocked somehow on a power line. A good object lesson to emphasize not playing around safety lines" So I gave the go-ahead. Quickly Jonathan, Jeremy and Jeffrey sprang into action. Josiah stayed home because Lauren (the most favorite cousin!) is here visiting, and he never goes anywhere without her! And Lauren's...well, a girl. Enough said. A few minutes later, Jeremy comes back and asks if they can get a wagon to bring the bird to show me. A wagon??? What kind of bird is this? I'm still thinking it's a little black bird or something. WRONG!! They brought back a BUZZARD! This big guy had a 50 inch wing span (OF COURSE they measured it!)

After bringing it to the porch to show it off, J&J asked if they could hang it up. Yes you read that right. Hang it up. They couldn't decide whether they wanted to hang it by the feet or the neck-which had been broken by the fall from the wire. (Sure, what better way to use the extra closeline twine? Sure, hang a dead bird with it!! YUCK!) There's an opening in our fence to someone else's property. They wanted to hang it from here and wait to see if the coyotes would come to eat it. I had to nix that one. We don't want the coyotes to know that we have chickens. Had to point that one out the boys. They were a little disappointed by that. I did consent to the hanging if they took it to the other guy's property when they were done. I assume they did because a few hours later we saw some buzzards circling in that area. Do they fly a certain formation when they realize it's one of their own?? Do they still eat it? Never mind, don't want to know that one!

Here's some pics of the boys and the bird.

Jeffrey, Jonathan, Josiah and Jeremy with Bud, the Buzzard.
Jeffrey and Bud, just "hanging around"