The Incontinent Vulture

My 5th graders had just walked into art class and sat down when the fire alarm went off. It was just a fire drill and we quickly filed out of the room to the playground where we stood atop a small hill in a line. For some reason the fire drills at that school seem to take forever, and as we were standing there waiting to go back inside, we noticed a huge vulture that was circling around in the air near where we were standing. There was nothing else to do, but stare at this huge bird so gracefully gliding in the air. Not once while he was circling up there did he flap his wings. I thought that in itself was kind of interesting. The kids grew excited as they shouted, "Look, a bald eagle, a hawk, etc.!" while the teachers were reminding them to stay quiet. By that time pretty much everyone of the 50 or so kids out there was watching the vulture. And then he dropped a bomb, with all of us watching. We all watched it fall to the earth, a big white blob! You can imagine the snickering and giggling that took place after that...not only from the kids but the teachers and aids too. But the funniest part was how one of our third grade teachers tried to impose a serious attitude as she presented a mini nature lesson on how birds do not have a sphincter muscle and when they have to poop, it just comes out what ever they are doing or where ever they are. I was cracking up. And those kids...most of them got serious and listened to her trying to explain a sphincter muscle. I could not keep a straight face. It was the funniest thing I've seen in a long time! During my break, later, I pulled out a book on how to draw grassland animals. It's an African vulture...white back or something...but I made it all black in my drawing, like the one we saw. Hopefully your not an ornithologist, and I can pass off this drawing as representative of a vulture that lives in Michigan (turkey vulture?). If you are, my apologies to you...all I had as a reference for the drawing was what I remembered seeing for a few short minutes and a kid's drawing book.