Wordle: One and Done plus Visit With a Vulture

Ninety eight percent of the time I figure out the daily Wordle. I’ve only had a couple of misses, and they were when the word was like match/latch/catch/watch, and I ran out of tries before I ran through the list. Mostly I finish in 4 tries, frequently 3 or 5 tries. I don’t have a favorite beginning word. I start by thinking of a 5-letter word that represents the day. Beach or plant or sandy. Not “weedy”, because it repeats a letter, or “ homes”, because I rarely see plurals as an answer. Today, I got it in 1! First time ever. I’m not sure how or why I chose my word. What was it? “Quest”. Still wonder about it. I don’t use “qu” often. 

In any case, an unexpected start for my day. Patten drove up from Fort Lauderdale, and at noon, we picked up Clara to go to the Audubon Center for Birds of Prey in Maitland. At the Orange Audubon fundraising auction, I’d won the bid for a training session with Uff-da, a black vulture who lives at the center. I’d bought it as a birthday present for Clara. It was supposed to be for me and one guest, but I’d talked the trainer Tabitha into letting me bring Patten too, after he told me he wanted that for his birthday too. At $300, my cheap heart decided to see if we could squeeze him into this one. Yes. 

We began with a tour of the facility with Dr. Daisy, head of the center, who took us through their lab, where they actually rehab the injured birds. We didn’t see those birds because each is in its own crate in segregated rooms of owls, hawks, eagles, and songbirds. If there were baby birds (season is just over), we couldn’t have gone in, because they don’t let the babies hear human voices, to avoid having them imprint on us.

They have a fancy X-ray machine and can do DNA analysis. If a bird needs an MRI or cat scan, it gets sent over to a local vet. Since birds don’t have diagrams, they would die under general anesthesia unless they were on a ventilator. The workers just put a hood on the injured bird, and it calms down enough to be laid on the examining table or machine bed. Sounds fun, especially with a full grown eagle.

In the kitchen, they prepare all the meals: lots of chicks and mice in the freezers, and a bucket of fish, I guess for the ospreys. 

After seeing all that and learning why the resident birds can’t be returned to the wild, we met Uff-da. We were supposed to visit 2 Saturdays ago, but at 5:00 Friday evening, someone from the center called and cancelled: Uff-da had an upset stomach and wasn’t well enough for us to visit. Really? Was it something she ate? They suggested coming to see a kestrel. Nope, we’re vulture viewers or nothing. Now, she’s better, although not 100%. Good enough. Trainer Tabitha showed us how the vulture has learned to go to her crate on command. This is needed so the volunteers can hose down her large enclosure and rake the sand floor without being attacked. Evidently, she doesn’t like the hose. Maybe thinks it’s a snake? 

She’s also learned to jump up on her station and wait, then come when called. The newest lessons are to touch a blue ring or yellow one when the trainer said the color. I asked if there were anything in the literature that would indicate that this is something a vulture could learn. Doesn’t seem so, but we were assured that vultures are as smart as dogs, which is like a 7-year-old human. Hmmmm, I have my doubts. TBD. 

At the end, we could feed Uff-da mouse chunks. We would hold the meat with a hemostat. I guess fewer vulture bites. Clara passed, but Patten and I jumped at the chance.

An experience. A quest.

Papa made us pizza for dinner. I had baked a ginger cake in my castle Bundt cake pan and decorated with with white glaze and black trim as an homage to vultures. Yum.