Snow melted on my cheeks as I scanned the empty sky with binoculars. I was standing as close to the fire as I dared. My friend Lou called across the snowy field, "Did Audubon really start this way?" It was March 15 and we were looking for buzzards on Buzzard Day in Hinckley, Ohio. Our Maryland friends had hailed our "mission improbable" with hilarity, but we were (almost) serious. After all, what makes Capistrano's swallows more intrinsically valuable than Hinckley's buzzards? Every year, on March 15, the turkey vultures (commonly known as buzzards) return to the Hinckley Reservation from points south. Hinckley Lake and the layered sandstone ledges in this suburb of Cleveland provide ideal conditions for the sociable birds to nest and raise their young. A local legend explains that buzzards were originally drawn to the area in 1818 by the Great Hinckley Varmint Hunt, which left piles of enticing corpses lying around. The birds have been recorded as returning on the same day every spring since 1934. Hinckley honors this perfect attendance with its nationally known Buzzard Festival, whose tone is set by the comical logo designed by Al Capp. The festival features a pancake and sausage breakfast at the Hinckley Elementary School, with a live buzzard as the star attraction. We had driven from Maryland to see the buzzards fly in, but they had beaten us to Hinckley, arriving early that morning, on schedule as usual. The Official Buzzard Spotter said so. We found Ranger Capt. Roger Lutz at the Ranger Station across from the entrance to the Hinckley Reservation, and he was happy to answer my question. "Yes, they're back. I spotted three at 6:32 this morning. It's the earliest I've seen them in the 12 years I've been the official spotter." Had they really flown in today? "Channel 43 called me yesterday. Told me there were buzzards flying around the ledges and I'd better come down. I was too busy preparing for the Buzzard Day Festival to get down there." Then, with a grin, "Anyway, I don't look up till the 15th." What about Leap Year? Are they early? What if there's a big storm? Aren't they late? "Well, we have some problems. But I always spot them on the 15th. I've got field glasses that'll pull in Toledo." While we were talking to him, Lutz took a phone call from a radio station in Missouri (live on the air) and another from a reporter in British Columbia. He assured both callers of the buzzards' return. "Birds were going up 15 or 20 at a time all morning. I've never seen them so active as early as this." That was in the morning, when the temperature was in the balmy sixties. A cold front, which had arrived just before we did, dropped the temperature by more than 20 degrees. Leaving Lutz to his public, we drove to Buzzard Roost, a field fringed with bare trees and rapidly turning white. This was reputed to be a good observation point for buzzards, which soar to great altitudes on the thermals rising above the field. Since it was Buzzard Day, the thoughtful rangers had built fires in the barrels near the parking area. Wind hummed in the trees and snapped snow pellets off my glasses. A ranger drove up and commiserated with our buzzardless state. "It's the cold front," he said. "They're just sitting somewhere. That cold wind freaks them out." We drove to Whipp's Ledges, determined to give the buzzards every opportunity to show themselves. The sandstone ledges stand on a ridge above the lake, affording the buzzards good habitats and a wonderful view. We climbed up a steep path through the woods and over the ridge, admiring the striated sandstone -- slanting, mossy and veined with pebbles. The ledges contained small caves, but no caves contained buzzards, and the only sounds we heard besides our own were the sleety snow hiss and the calls of titmice and crows. We walked along the top of the ridge to the next parking area and across its fields to check out a tree that held some black shapes. Buzzards? No, impostor crows. Disappointed, we followed the paths back down the ridge. We were beginning to think that the buzzards were a legend like the Great Hinckley Varmint Hunt. The snow stopped and the gray sky dimmed toward dusk as we walked to Hinckley Lake. Then suddenly, through a break in the trees, I saw a buzzard. Two buzzards. Wings held in the characteristic flattened V, or dihedral. Soaring in teetering slanted circles. No mistake this time. "Buzzards!" Lou swung the video camera up. "Some frustrated buzzard-seeker must have killed something," he said. Then there were three great birds. Four. Nine. Spiraling up like a musical crescendo. Wide black wings tilted to catch the elevator thermals, "fingertip" feathers flared to find maximum lift. Glorious. Buzzards on Buzzard Day. While we waited for the festival (the first Sunday after March 15), we watched Hinckley gear up to celebrate. The library featured a plush buzzard hanging over the checkout counter, a glass buzzard in the window and a display of articles about the famous festival. Across the street, the sign at the fire station/town hall changed from "Wanted: Volunteers for Buzzard Festival" to "Buzzard's Eve Dance at Our Lady of Grace Hall." On Buzzard's Eve day, we paid a visit to the Hinckley Outfitters and Taxidermist. The store sells decoys, black powder, fish spears and other hunting and fishing equipment. Fox squirrels and birds stood in lifelike attitudes, deer gazed pensively from the walls, a black bear rug could be had for $450. Jim Rollins, proprietor and taxidermist, told us, "People come in here looking for a stuffed buzzard. We don't have any. They're protected by state and federal laws." At K + K Donuts and Coffee, we indulged in freshly made doughnuts and talked to the friendly cook/waitress, Sharon Stabulis, who showed us the Hinckley Township Sesquicentennial (1825-1975) book. What is now Hinckley Township was purchased in 1785 by a judge in Massachusetts; he bought a five-square-mile tract for a span of horses, their harness and a carriage -- about 23 cents an acre. Then we went over to the school to check out the festival arrangements. Children's drawings of buzzards decorated the corridor walls. One imaginative third-grader had drawn a buzzard named Cool Dude carrying a boombox, while another pictured a feathered traveler hauling a suitcase labeled Hinckley or Bust, happily reading the town's Welcome Home Buzzards sign.Classrooms were filling with arts and crafts, games and displays. On Festival Day, eager for breakfast and a close-up view of a live buzzard (preferably in that order), we arrived at the school at about 7:30, were greeted by the aroma of frying sausage and quickly got in line. Volunteer chefs tended the sausages and pancakes, which proved to be memorable. Best of all, extra pancakes were free. After breakfast, we talked to John Wiszt, one of the founders of the festival in 1957. "We called Al Capp from the phone in my dining room," he said proudly. Asked how much Capp charged to design the logo, Wiszt replied, "Not a cent. He even mentioned Buzzard Day in 'Li'l Abner' a couple of times." Wiszt claimed that the buzzards win the migration race on March 15, beating the swallows' traditional arrival in Capistrano by four full days, because the buzzards have a bigger wing span. "They fly faster," he declared. That six-foot wing span was much in evidence when Geek the Buzzard arrived a bit later, escorted by Harvey Webster of the Cleveland Natural History Museum. Geek has been center stage on Buzzard Day since 1976, but this room filled with chattering admirers was clearly not his preferred environment. Standing on Webster's gloved hand, Geek flared his wings in alarm until the crowd quieted and the balloons were reined in. After all, Webster pointed out, Geek was introduced to humanity on the grill of someone's car and arrived soon after at the Natural History Museum, 24 years ago, with the fragile hollow bones in one wing shattered. While Webster talked, Geek occasionally shrugged his shoulders and fluffed his feathers, causing wisps of down to float out to reaching children. He was an unexpectedly attractive bird, his back and upper wings soft dark shades of brown, his long trailing wing feathers blackish above and silvery-gray below. His featherless head looked like a Halloween mask, with dark rings circling his eyes. Webster explained that unlike most birds, turkey vultures have a well-developed sense of smell, which allows them to zero in on decaying flesh. Their digestive systems can handle anything. Once, in an experiment, a vulture was fed a dose of botulism powerful enough to kill 30,000 guinea pigs. The vulture didn't even burp. They do more than burp when they're threatened, though. They defend themselves by regurgitating their last meal, which, Webster said, "smells so disgusting that most predators sheer away." The audience murmured and moved back, but Webster promised us that Geek was safe. "We made sure," he said obscurely. Many turkey vultures then in Hinckley would continue north, Webster told us, and by breeding season (May), the Hinckley colony would probably contain about 25 birds -- eight or nine breeding pairs and a few hangers-on. That's about one buzzard for every 800 people at the festival. When we finally left Geek, we headed down into the park, joining the crowd at Buzzard Roost. Sightings had been good, according to the scoreboard set up for the occasion. When we got there at 11:15, the scoreboard read, "Time of last sighting: 11:14; Most at one time: 37; Total seen today: 148." We warmed ourselves at the fire barrels, patted a ranger's horse and investigated the Cleveland Metroparks van with its displays of local fauna, nature games for kids and free hot chocolate. At 11:27, a cheer went up and arms pointed. "Buzzards!" We watched in delight as turkey vultures spiraled above the field, rising on the thermals before soaring away. Cecily Nabors is a freelance writer. THE FESTIVAL: This year's Buzzard Festival will take place Sunday, March 18. The Buzzard Sunday Breakfast costs $3.75 for adults, $2 for children; it starts at 7 a.m. and lasts until the food runs out. GETTING THERE: It's about 400 miles to Hinckley, Ohio, from the Beltway. Take I-270 north from the Beltway to I-70 north to the Pennsylvania Turnpike (at Breezewood). Take the turnpike west to the Ohio Turnpike. Exit on I-71 south to Route 303. Hinckley is three miles to the east. WHERE TO STAY: There are many motels and hotels in the Cleveland area. Closest to Hinckley are the Holiday Inn and the Red Roof Inn in Strongsville (near the intersection of I-71 and the Ohio Turnpike). WHERE TO EAT: In addition to the Buzzard Sunday Breakfast, you need a Buzzard Burger at the Buzzards' Roost on Route 303 just outside Hinckley. A complete change of pace is the Perfect Match, a fine restaurant in a converted match factory in Mentor, on Lake Erie east of Cleveland. Cleveland, of course, has many restaurant options. INFORMATION: For more information about Hinckley's Buzzard Day, contact the Hinckley Chamber of Commerce, P.O. Box 354, Hinckley, Ohio 44233, (216) 278-2554. Harvey Webster of the Cleveland Natural History Museum, who escorted Geek to last year's Buzzard Festival, answered questions about the bird: What's the buzzard's real name? Though buzzard is an old name, ornithologists prefer turkey vulture -- "turkey" because of the wrinkled, red, featherless head and "vulture" because of their diet of putrid flesh. How big are they? Their wing span is about six feet, their weight about four pounds (which is very light for their size -- good for soaring). What do they eat? Carrion only. (Black vultures sometimes kill small animals.) Why doesn't carrion make them sick? Their featherless heads and feet are easy to clean, a bony plate protects their nostrils and they have a dynamite digestive system. How can you identify them in flight? Their shape is a flattened V (called a dihedral), as opposed to flat (like a hawk). They soar and hardly ever flap, but teeter or waver a lot. Their feathers at the wing-edges curve up like fingertips and are paler at the edges. How far do they go from the roost? Four or five miles. When is the best time of day to see them near the roost? Between dawn and 9 a.m., and between 4 p.m. and dusk. Where do they lay eggs? Not in a conventional nest, but in caves, hollow logs or hollow trees. How long do they live? Perhaps 45 years. Why do they leave Hinckley in the winter? Northern Ohio has too much snow -- they can't find food. Also, they can't tear it up if it's frozen. (In the Washington area, they tend to stay all winter.)
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