Comments | shapeshft: What greeted me this morning.

shapeshft

What greeted me this morning.

Apr 11, 2008 18:22

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fauna

Comments 6

sheherazahde April 11 2008, 23:57:49 UTC

Is that a vulture?

shapeshft April 12 2008, 02:41:15 UTC

Yes it is. Big ol' turkey vulture.

Actually it may have been a juvenile. Its head was reddish but not particularly bright.

libwitch April 12 2008, 00:20:00 UTC

a vulture? hmmmm.....interesting mythology there.

shapeshft April 12 2008, 02:42:26 UTC

I thought so, too. I pulled out my Animal Speak book to see what that said. There's a rather long entry on vultures.

libwitch April 13 2008, 17:44:01 UTC

Huh. I hadn't heard that about the aura's and so forth. Its funny though, because here we just equate them with spooky/death/decay (well we ALWAYS associate death with the negatives, don't we?) and other cultures, though still tying them with death stories, have much more positive images of them.

re: Animal Speak shapeshft April 12 2008, 02:58:21 UTC

One thing I did discover later... the scientific name of Turkey Vulture is claimed in the book to mean "Golden Purifier". Another site says the etymology is slightly different. "Purifier" is correct, but "aura" was not intended to mean "golden" (or "breeze," which was stated by yet another site)... but it was apparently adapted from a native Mexican name for the bird which is "Auraura".

I thought that was interesting.