Only a Mother Could Love a Face Like That...

One day when we were taking a ride on our lake recently, we looked up in the sky and there were at least 20 huge birds circling and circling one of the islands.

My husband said there were probably vultures there circling something dead.

Of course, I wanted to investigate what kind of vultures they were and see if I could get their picture, because I am sick like that.

Sure enough, when we got closer, we saw they were huge turkey vultures.

Here he is in all his uglier than ugly splendor:

At one point, we rounded the island and found about seven on one rock. But the sun was at the wrong angle to show you the picture of the bunch of them. But, at least I got closeups of these uglier-than-sin beauties:

Just look at their red heads!:

A trio of trouble:

The one on the right is looking over his shoulder at me, saying: "Whatchu lookin' at?":

A group sunbathing on the rocks:

This one is about to take off. He didn't like me taking his photo, apparently:

But, the absolute neatest part of the day was when we noticed them doing something very peculiar.

It was very hot and humid the day we caught them out on the island.

As I said before, the sun wasn't helping me photograph where they were because it was close to sunset and the sun was on the wrong side of them.

But after many tries, at least I caught one picture of them doing it.

They would spread out their wings verrrrry wide, as if they were airing out their feathers and armpits and just sit in the tree with their wings spread.

It was bizarre.

But it made for a GREAT photo of them:

Wow, huh?

It gives you an idea of how big they really are when they have their wings spread.

Darn that sun! It was the wrong angle for pictures of it.

Did I mention that yet?...