October 14, 2025 • 9 mins
Rob has a front row seat at a gathering of vultures.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
Hi, I'm Rob.
Tale number sixty-nine.
Picked clean.
I live in a smallish town.
(00:21):
It feels like a small town, butthere's a military base nearby,
so it's actually bigger thanyour normal small town.
And there's a little downtownarea, and sometimes I go to the
library in that downtown area todo work or read or whatever.
One day I was doing that.
I was I was at the libraryworking, and they closed for
lunch for an hour and a half.
(00:42):
And so I needed to go and waitsomewhere until lunch break was
over and I could come back tothe library.
And the library is in the middleof like a revitalization project
that's going on downtown.
There are lots of new governmentbuildings around, there's some
new sidewalks, and there's afood truck park right across the
street, but there's never anyfood trucks there.
But there are a lot of picnictables, so that's where I decide
(01:05):
to go.
As I'm making my way to a picnictable, some commotion catches my
eye to my right, and across theroad from the food truck park is
this big open lawn.
The grass is short, it's beenrecently cut, and it's a place
like where you can go play fetchwith your dog or something like
that.
But on this day there are nodogs being played with.
(01:25):
There's a large group ofvultures, probably fifteen or
twenty.
I love vultures, and they'reeating something that's dead,
and I'm curious about whatthey're eating, so I walk across
the road and take a look.
And I'm a little surprised bywhat I see, because there's two
things that they're eating, adead raccoon and a dead fox.
It looks like they're abouthalfway finished with the
(01:46):
raccoon.
There's definitely some exposedbone and a lot of fur, but they
haven't gotten as far into thefox yet.
It's mostly intact.
I see a bench pretty nearby, soI decide to sit there instead of
at the food truck park.
I have my computer with me so Ican do some work and watch the
vultures at the same time.
It's mostly black vultures andthen one turkey vulture.
(02:07):
I'm sure you've seen bothspecies before.
You know, vultures, they don'thave feathers on their head, and
turkey vultures their head ispink in color, and black
vultures, their head is black.
Um I don't know a lot aboutvultures.
I do know that turkey vultureshave a really strong sense of
smell, so they can find deadthings to eat really easily.
And then black vultures don'thave that sense of smell, so
(02:29):
they just follow turkey vulturesaround.
But then turkey vultures usuallyaren't in huge groups, and black
vultures are in big groups, soonce the turkey vulture finds
the food, the black vulturescome in and kind of bully the
turkey vulture out of the wayand eat the dead animal.
And that's what I waswitnessing, I think, this back
and forth at these carcassesbetween the black vultures and
(02:51):
the turkey vulture.
And again, the black vulturesoutnumbered the turkey vulture
like 15 to 1.
The turkey vulture did get inthere and eat.
Like it would move in, grab abite, and then get chased away
by the black vultures, and thenit would come back and get
another bite and get chased awayagain.
So it was eating, even though itwas almost constantly getting
chased away from the carcassesby the black vultures.
And I had never really heard thevocalizations that vultures
(03:14):
make, but they're nothing like abird.
You might expect a crow or maybesomething like a hawk.
If I had closed my eyes and youasked me to guess what I was
listening to, it would have beenpuppies playing tug of war.
Like they weren't yelping, butthat closed mouth growling sound
when dogs are pulling onsomething.
And I was watching that and theywere pulling pieces off the
raccoon and pulling pieces offof the fox.
(03:36):
It was great.
And then I heard a car pull inbehind me at the food truck
park.
They parked on the side of theroad and got out, and it was a
young man and a young woman anda photographer, and they were
there to take engagement photos.
I guess they had picked thisspot because again it was like
the revitalized part of town,repaved roads, new streetlights,
(03:57):
new sidewalks, lots of recentlandscaping.
For this area, it's probably anice spot to get a good
background for an engagementphoto.
The only problem with that planis there are fifteen vultures
flying around fighting over adead raccoon and a dead fox.
The photographer had visited thespot earlier in the week and
(04:18):
planned the angles she wantedfor every photo.
And every sort of angle andbackground she had selected, the
vultures were going to be in thephoto.
So now she was sort ofpanicking, but they were trying
to pivot and find a shot thatthe vultures didn't show up in.
They found an angle everyoneliked and took some photos.
And then more people startedshowing up.
(04:39):
I'd never seen engagement photoswhere like the family was
involved, but in this case,mothers and fathers and friends
showed up, and now thephotographer wanted to mix
things up, but they really onlyhad one angle because they
couldn't get away from thevultures.
People were starting to get mad.
Phone calls were being made tothe city to see if anything
could be done.
They had a big lunch planned andthis was taking longer than it
(05:01):
was supposed to, so it wasdelaying their arrival time to
their restaurant, and they wereworried that they were going to
lose the reservation or it wasgoing to cost more money.
And I was sitting there in allthis just kind of watching from
my bench.
There were two paths that mymind was going down at that
moment.
One was why was there a deadraccoon and a dead fox in the
exact same place?
Like that seemed weird to me.
(05:22):
How did both animals get to thesame spot?
And they were way off the road,so it wasn't a situation where
like the raccoon had been hit bya car, and then the fox had
shown up and started eating thedead raccoon, and then the fox
was hit by a car.
It looked like the carcasses hadbeen moved there, or in my mind
I thought maybe they had beendragged there by other animals.
And then the other thing was thepeople were arguing about food.
(05:45):
The vultures were arguing aboutfood.
If someone could get like areally wide shot that included
the engagement photo group andthe vultures, I don't like
taking photos of people withoutasking them, so I wasn't going
to do it, but it would have beena cool photo.
And around that time, the windshifted.
And so I've been watching thisthe whole time and it has
smelled fine.
I hadn't smelled any deathsmell.
(06:07):
But when the wind shifted, thatdecomposition smell started
drifting towards me and thefolks taking the engagement
photos.
You could hear the smell moveinto that group of people
because there was a lot ofgroaning and coughing, and it
was just strong smell.
And this made the crowd ofpeople which were sorta mad,
very mad.
You can just feel the pressurerising.
(06:29):
They wanted to get out of there,but they still needed to take
one photo with everyone in it.
And so they're sort offrantically trying to get that
together, trying to find anangle with no vultures in it.
And then a white pickup truckshowed up, parked on the side of
the road closest to thevultures.
I think everyone thought it wassomeone from the county or the
city here to do something aboutthe situation.
That's what I thought it was.
(06:49):
It looked like a work truck.
A guy got out of the truck andhe put on some leather work
gloves.
Then he got a five gallon bucketout of his truck, and he made
his way towards the fox and theraccoon, and I think we were all
thinking he was gonna pick 'emup and put them in the bucket.
Then if he could just move thedead animals, the vultures would
follow.
Which was disappointing to me.
(07:10):
I wanted them to stay, but Iunderstood that their location
was not ideal.
But when he got to thecarcasses, instead of picking
the animals up, he tipped thebucket over, and a dead cat
plopped out of it onto theground right by the raccoon and
the fox.
It was very damaged and hadobviously been hit by a car or
many cars.
(07:31):
And then he turned around andslowly walked back to his truck,
and then he put the bucket inthe back of his truck, took his
gloves off, threw those in theback of the truck.
And then I'll never forget thispart, I don't know why, but then
he turned and looked back wherehe had dumped the dead cat, and
he just stared at it for like aminute, and the vultures finally
jumped onto it and startedpicking at it, and he smiled.
(07:54):
And it wasn't a sinister smile,it was more of a smile of
satisfaction.
Because I think this guy haddumped the raccoon and the fox
too.
I don't know if he worked forthe government or if he was just
a local guy, but I think he wasgathering roadkill and dumping
it, and it made him smile to seethe vultures doing what they do.
And I get that.
(08:15):
And then he got in his truck anddrove away.
And we all just sat there insilence, as the vultures
growled, grumbled, and tore atthe fresh meat that had just
been presented to them.
It zapped the energy out of thepeople, they took their photo
and got out of there.
And I just sort of sat there inawe.
And then I made my way back tothe library, worked for a little
(08:38):
while longer, and then headedhome.
A few days later I was drivingby that spot.
There were no vultures, noroadkill.
I stopped and walked over, andall that remained of the cat,
the fox, and the raccoon werebones that had been picked
clean.
(09:00):
Rob Tells Tales is produced byme, Rob Tiffin.
Our theme music is by MitchellHarditch.
Our cover art is by MarcellaJohnson.
She also came up with the titleof the podcast.
Thanks to everyone who talksthrough these episodes with me
before I record them.
There are too many to list.
(09:20):
And thanks to you for listening.
Hi, I'm Rob.
Tale number sixty-nine.
Picked clean.
I live in a smallish town.
(00:21):
It feels like a small town, butthere's a military base nearby,
so it's actually bigger thanyour normal small town.
And there's a little downtownarea, and sometimes I go to the
library in that downtown area todo work or read or whatever.
One day I was doing that.
I was I was at the libraryworking, and they closed for
lunch for an hour and a half.
(00:42):
And so I needed to go and waitsomewhere until lunch break was
over and I could come back tothe library.
And the library is in the middleof like a revitalization project
that's going on downtown.
There are lots of new governmentbuildings around, there's some
new sidewalks, and there's afood truck park right across the
street, but there's never anyfood trucks there.
But there are a lot of picnictables, so that's where I decide
(01:05):
to go.
As I'm making my way to a picnictable, some commotion catches my
eye to my right, and across theroad from the food truck park is
this big open lawn.
The grass is short, it's beenrecently cut, and it's a place
like where you can go play fetchwith your dog or something like
that.
But on this day there are nodogs being played with.
(01:25):
There's a large group ofvultures, probably fifteen or
twenty.
I love vultures, and they'reeating something that's dead,
and I'm curious about whatthey're eating, so I walk across
the road and take a look.
And I'm a little surprised bywhat I see, because there's two
things that they're eating, adead raccoon and a dead fox.
It looks like they're abouthalfway finished with the
(01:46):
raccoon.
There's definitely some exposedbone and a lot of fur, but they
haven't gotten as far into thefox yet.
It's mostly intact.
I see a bench pretty nearby, soI decide to sit there instead of
at the food truck park.
I have my computer with me so Ican do some work and watch the
vultures at the same time.
It's mostly black vultures andthen one turkey vulture.
(02:07):
I'm sure you've seen bothspecies before.
You know, vultures, they don'thave feathers on their head, and
turkey vultures their head ispink in color, and black
vultures, their head is black.
Um I don't know a lot aboutvultures.
I do know that turkey vultureshave a really strong sense of
smell, so they can find deadthings to eat really easily.
And then black vultures don'thave that sense of smell, so
(02:29):
they just follow turkey vulturesaround.
But then turkey vultures usuallyaren't in huge groups, and black
vultures are in big groups, soonce the turkey vulture finds
the food, the black vulturescome in and kind of bully the
turkey vulture out of the wayand eat the dead animal.
And that's what I waswitnessing, I think, this back
and forth at these carcassesbetween the black vultures and
(02:51):
the turkey vulture.
And again, the black vulturesoutnumbered the turkey vulture
like 15 to 1.
The turkey vulture did get inthere and eat.
Like it would move in, grab abite, and then get chased away
by the black vultures, and thenit would come back and get
another bite and get chased awayagain.
So it was eating, even though itwas almost constantly getting
chased away from the carcassesby the black vultures.
And I had never really heard thevocalizations that vultures
(03:14):
make, but they're nothing like abird.
You might expect a crow or maybesomething like a hawk.
If I had closed my eyes and youasked me to guess what I was
listening to, it would have beenpuppies playing tug of war.
Like they weren't yelping, butthat closed mouth growling sound
when dogs are pulling onsomething.
And I was watching that and theywere pulling pieces off the
raccoon and pulling pieces offof the fox.
(03:36):
It was great.
And then I heard a car pull inbehind me at the food truck
park.
They parked on the side of theroad and got out, and it was a
young man and a young woman anda photographer, and they were
there to take engagement photos.
I guess they had picked thisspot because again it was like
the revitalized part of town,repaved roads, new streetlights,
(03:57):
new sidewalks, lots of recentlandscaping.
For this area, it's probably anice spot to get a good
background for an engagementphoto.
The only problem with that planis there are fifteen vultures
flying around fighting over adead raccoon and a dead fox.
The photographer had visited thespot earlier in the week and
(04:18):
planned the angles she wantedfor every photo.
And every sort of angle andbackground she had selected, the
vultures were going to be in thephoto.
So now she was sort ofpanicking, but they were trying
to pivot and find a shot thatthe vultures didn't show up in.
They found an angle everyoneliked and took some photos.
And then more people startedshowing up.
(04:39):
I'd never seen engagement photoswhere like the family was
involved, but in this case,mothers and fathers and friends
showed up, and now thephotographer wanted to mix
things up, but they really onlyhad one angle because they
couldn't get away from thevultures.
People were starting to get mad.
Phone calls were being made tothe city to see if anything
could be done.
They had a big lunch planned andthis was taking longer than it
(05:01):
was supposed to, so it wasdelaying their arrival time to
their restaurant, and they wereworried that they were going to
lose the reservation or it wasgoing to cost more money.
And I was sitting there in allthis just kind of watching from
my bench.
There were two paths that mymind was going down at that
moment.
One was why was there a deadraccoon and a dead fox in the
exact same place?
Like that seemed weird to me.
(05:22):
How did both animals get to thesame spot?
And they were way off the road,so it wasn't a situation where
like the raccoon had been hit bya car, and then the fox had
shown up and started eating thedead raccoon, and then the fox
was hit by a car.
It looked like the carcasses hadbeen moved there, or in my mind
I thought maybe they had beendragged there by other animals.
And then the other thing was thepeople were arguing about food.
(05:45):
The vultures were arguing aboutfood.
If someone could get like areally wide shot that included
the engagement photo group andthe vultures, I don't like
taking photos of people withoutasking them, so I wasn't going
to do it, but it would have beena cool photo.
And around that time, the windshifted.
And so I've been watching thisthe whole time and it has
smelled fine.
I hadn't smelled any deathsmell.
(06:07):
But when the wind shifted, thatdecomposition smell started
drifting towards me and thefolks taking the engagement
photos.
You could hear the smell moveinto that group of people
because there was a lot ofgroaning and coughing, and it
was just strong smell.
And this made the crowd ofpeople which were sorta mad,
very mad.
You can just feel the pressurerising.
(06:29):
They wanted to get out of there,but they still needed to take
one photo with everyone in it.
And so they're sort offrantically trying to get that
together, trying to find anangle with no vultures in it.
And then a white pickup truckshowed up, parked on the side of
the road closest to thevultures.
I think everyone thought it wassomeone from the county or the
city here to do something aboutthe situation.
That's what I thought it was.
(06:49):
It looked like a work truck.
A guy got out of the truck andhe put on some leather work
gloves.
Then he got a five gallon bucketout of his truck, and he made
his way towards the fox and theraccoon, and I think we were all
thinking he was gonna pick 'emup and put them in the bucket.
Then if he could just move thedead animals, the vultures would
follow.
Which was disappointing to me.
(07:10):
I wanted them to stay, but Iunderstood that their location
was not ideal.
But when he got to thecarcasses, instead of picking
the animals up, he tipped thebucket over, and a dead cat
plopped out of it onto theground right by the raccoon and
the fox.
It was very damaged and hadobviously been hit by a car or
many cars.
(07:31):
And then he turned around andslowly walked back to his truck,
and then he put the bucket inthe back of his truck, took his
gloves off, threw those in theback of the truck.
And then I'll never forget thispart, I don't know why, but then
he turned and looked back wherehe had dumped the dead cat, and
he just stared at it for like aminute, and the vultures finally
jumped onto it and startedpicking at it, and he smiled.
(07:54):
And it wasn't a sinister smile,it was more of a smile of
satisfaction.
Because I think this guy haddumped the raccoon and the fox
too.
I don't know if he worked forthe government or if he was just
a local guy, but I think he wasgathering roadkill and dumping
it, and it made him smile to seethe vultures doing what they do.
And I get that.
(08:15):
And then he got in his truck anddrove away.
And we all just sat there insilence, as the vultures
growled, grumbled, and tore atthe fresh meat that had just
been presented to them.
It zapped the energy out of thepeople, they took their photo
and got out of there.
And I just sort of sat there inawe.
And then I made my way back tothe library, worked for a little
(08:38):
while longer, and then headedhome.
A few days later I was drivingby that spot.
There were no vultures, noroadkill.
I stopped and walked over, andall that remained of the cat,
the fox, and the raccoon werebones that had been picked
clean.
(09:00):
Rob Tells Tales is produced byme, Rob Tiffin.
Our theme music is by MitchellHarditch.
Our cover art is by MarcellaJohnson.
She also came up with the titleof the podcast.
Thanks to everyone who talksthrough these episodes with me
before I record them.
There are too many to list.
(09:20):
And thanks to you for listening.
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